African Medicine
The 21st century has begun with a global health crisis of new and
re-emerging diseases spiralling out of control, which coupled with
escalating violence and poverty, threatens to cripple entire
communities and countries. To tackle this crisis, it is currently
essential that the Medical community work to access and harness as
many resources and partners as possible. One of the resources often
overlooked and underestimated, is the role of traditional medicine and
healers, and the potential contributions they can make at many levels
of health care delivery.
One of the most famous traditional medicine being African medicine.
Yorubic medicine is native to and widely practiced on the African
continent. Yorubic medicine has its roots in the Ifa Corpus, a
religious text revealed by the mystic Prophet Orunmila, over 4000
years ago in the ancient city of Ile-Ife, now known as Yorubaland.
Within the last 400 years, this healing system has also been practiced
in the day to day lives of individuals in the Caribbean, and South
America. The traditions were brought over by African slaves arriving
in America.
Orunmila’s teachings were directed at the Yoruba people which centered
around the topics of divination, prayer, dance, symbolic gestures,
personal and communal elevation, spiritual baths, meditation, and
herbal medicine. The purpose of Yoruba is not merely to counteract the
negative forces of disease in the human body, but also to achieve
spiritual enlightenment and elevation which are the means of freeing
the soul. As with all ancient systems of medicine, the ideal of Yoruba
herbology is to condition the body in its ...
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...er1. However, these compounds have also been reported
to demonstrate antibacterial, antiviral, anticarcinogenic,
anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, and vasodilatory actions and may be
a useful component in the treatment of a number of conditions.
Jobelyn plays a tremendous role in the management of HIV/AIDS,
increasing cellular immunity in HIV positive individuals either alone
or in combination with antiretroviral drugs. In a preliminary study
involving 64 patients, Jobelyn significantly increased the CD4 counts
in HIV/AIDS patients receiving triple therapy of Nevirapine,
Lamivudine and Stavudine for 12 weeks whose initial CD4 counts were
low. It also effectively increased the CD4 counts of HIV/AIDS patients
whose CD4 counts were lesser when given alone. There was general
improvement in the well-being of the patients.
I intend to help readers question their healing practices and the state of today’s formal medicine—to influence thought, education of the reality and exploration of the natural medicine realm.
erosion of the Aboriginal culture.(chp.2). Restrictions placed on the cultural practices of the Aboriginal people ultimately led to the abatement of the Aboriginal traditional medicines.(p88). Losing their freedom to practice traditional therapeutics, the Aboriginal people eventually had to adapt to the culturally inappropriate ways of western medicines. The purpose of this paper is to examine the advantages of Aboriginal healing methods for the Aboriginal people, as well as to explain why these traditional methods continued to persist long after western style medicines were introduced.
In the article of “Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of the Visual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects”, the author, Michael Baxandall mainly discussed interrelationship within the group of three agents upon their influence and reflect of the artifacts in the museum, and the understanding of culture elements behind the display. In the first part of this paper, I will identify the points of view of the author. In the second part, I will analyze the layout of the gallery, “Imagining the Underground” in Earth Matters in Fowler Museum in UCLA. Several discussion related to the settings of the museum and the article will be discussed interactively. In general, this paper tries to show the robustness and the weakness of Baxandall’s model, which will specified.
Lindberg, D. (n.d.). Herbal Medicine: MedlinePlus. U.S National Library of Medicine. Retrieved May 7, 2014, from http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/herbal
One of the newest movement in Yoruba religion is the Healing Homes or Prayer Houses. They participates in restoration through supplications, petitions and symbols of prayers because, like the Yoruba indigenous scope of healing, it covers the whole sphere of life, such as freedom from sickness and victory over demonic powers. Some of the movements exist to cure sickness and misfortune. One particular of the factors that warrant the new movement in Nigerian religions is The impotence of ...
Homeopathy medicine is a self-healing alternative medicine developed in 1790 by German physician and chemist Samuel Hahnemann. Homeopathy medicine aims to treat the whole body and not just the symptoms. Homeopathy medicine was very popular throughout the united states during the early 1900 but began to die out after the civil war. Homeopathy medicine is approximately 200 years old, though it is believed to have originated in 400 B.C through Hippocrates. However, Samuel Hahnemann gave this medical practice a name in the late 1700s and developed three principles for Homeopathy medicine that still stands today. Homeopathy medicine was developed in the late 1700s, which saw a period of unhygienic and brutal medical techniques. Samuel a physician
The Aleut people is the native people of the Aleutian Islands in the western part of Alaska. The earliest people in this region, the Paleo-Aleuts, arrived in the Aleutian islands from the the Alaskan mainland about 2000 BC (Encyclopedia Britannica). Traditional Aleut medicine was quite comprehensive. They had a vast knowledge of how the human body work. In this essay we will explore the history of the traditional Aleut medicine and the many methods they used.
In today’s world, many people assume that the latest medical technology and treatments are always the best option. However, all over the world, different techniques for curing diseases and aliments are being used. These methods fall under the category of complementary and alternative medicine.
Culture is what a particular society believes in and the way of life they lead. It is deeply defined by what a society believes in for example their traditions, customs and religion as well as other defining factors. “A people’s culture can be seen in the food they eat, the kind of clothes they wear, their music, dance, values (what is acceptable to them as a people) and to some extent, their perception of life. (Saka)”
Every year, approximately 230, 000 to 400. 00 deaths are caused by iatrogenic deaths ( in other words, these are deaths caused by wrong medical treatments). Two of the prominent yet some what contrasting types of medicine are, Ayurveda, the Indian traditional medicine, and Modern (aka western) medicine. Both of these have their own processes and methods of healing, which over the years have created their own followers. While Ayurveda addresses the root causes of the disease through identifying the imbalances in the elements, called “Doshas”, it also emphasizes on a spiritual lifestyle which for most people in today's world is a sea change. On the other hand, western medicine addresses the symptoms and provides instant albeit temporary relief for suffering. Needless to say there are more followers of the western medicine due to its immediate impact on subsiding the pain. Out of lack of awareness to the significance of traditional medicine, especially Ayurveda, many doctors and researchers are against the use of Ayurvedic and traditional medicines, which limits the potential of curing certain ailments of patients without additional side effects.
Malaria (also called biduoterian fever, blackwater fever, falciparum malaria, plasmodium, Quartan malaria, and tertian malaria) is one of the most infectious and most common diseases in the world. This serious, sometimes-fatal disease is caused by a parasite that is carried by a certain species of mosquito called the Anopheles. It claims more lives every year than any other transmissible disease except tuberculosis. Every year, five hundred million adults and children (around nine percent of the world’s population) contract the disease and of these, one hundred million people die. Children are more susceptible to the disease than adults, and in Africa, where ninety percent of the world’s cases occur and where eighty percent of the cases are treated at home, one in twenty children die of the disease before they reach the age of five. Pregnant women are also more vulnerable to disease and in certain parts of Africa, they are four times as likely to contract the disease and only half as likely to survive it.
Malaria is caused by Plasmodium parasites found in mosquitoes that carry an infectious disease. It is spread from the saliva through a bite of an infected female mosquito. Only female mosquitoes feed on blood, so this is why females are the carriers and spreaders of Malaria. Once you are bitten by an infected female mosquito then it releases the parasite into your blood where it moves to your liver and expands. This causes your liver to burst sending the infection back to your blood stream spreading to other areas of your body.
Over the centuries, several treatment methods have been utilized by humans for remedy diseases when they caught. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Traditional medicine, which is also called alternative treatment, is older than modern medicine. This effective treatment had been used for many centuries before modern medicine was found. On the contrary, modern medicine has been used since the 1900’s (Lyons). In this system, drugs’ tests are carefully done in the safe laboratories, and their side effects are identified before they are given to the patient. Moreover, the effects of the pills are written on the leaflets which are found in the drug packages to warn the patients for these effects. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked, so people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people take more chemicals into their bodies. Even traditional medicine, give its place to the modern medicine when its beginning times, it is used efficaciously like modern medicine at the present time. In course of time, people will gain reliance on traditional medicine again, since alternative medicine is more efficient and powerful in order to get better and soothe the diseases than modern medicine. In fact, in traditional medicine, there are fewer drugs, side effects, holistic therapy that people can be availed.
Herbal remedies’ qualities are widespread availability, lower cost, effective for chronic conditions. Herbal remedies are the use of plants or plant extract to treat a person’ overall health. Herbal treatments are prominent for developing countries for instance, “in Africa up to 90% and in India 70% of the population depend on traditional medicine to help meet their health care needs” (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011), due to their low cost and availability. Herbal remedies have gained attention in the past decades, and expanding their uses due to the increased interest of natural therapies (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Herbs used on the remedies grow in the wild throughout the world, therefore making it easy to
According to Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), the world 's largest plant conservation network, the primary form of health care for five billion people is traditional plant-based medicine (Hawkins, 2006, p. 3). This population is mainly concentrated in the developing world. In Africa, 80% of the population relies primarily on traditional medicine, because allopathic healthcare systems are out of reach, both through distance and cost (Elujoba, 2005, para. 4). Anthony Elujoba, a professor of Pharmacognosy at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria, argues that an “[e]ffective health agenda for the African continent can never be achieved by orthodox medicine alone unless it is complemented by traditional medicine practice” (para. 4). Institutionalizing traditional medicine would provide more funding for doctors who practice traditional medicine, allowing them to improve facilities and treatment. Countries that do not have access to mainstream health care must integrate traditional medicine into healthcare systems to provide support for the industry, while continuing to make mainstream healthcare a