DOGS Corner

How much of ourselves are we losing? How much of our culture and tradition have we lost on the altar of modernity and adoption of western ways and methods? Western medicine in particular.



I went down a rather vast rabbit hole of what used to be African traditional medicine and practice and I was shocked at how advanced we were as a race, carrying out complex medical procedures even before the west thought of them. It may appear outlandish but certain black African tribes, particularly the Kisii people in Kenya were performing open brain surgery to relieve pressure on the brain centuries before modern neuro-surgery became a thing. And they had phenomenal survival rates.

 This was long before Louis Pasteur developed a rudimentary understanding of germ theory in the 1860s.

I was having a random chit chat with the Mrs and a memory she recalled, led me down that rabbit hole. Our second son came up with mumps a few weeks ago and my mum directed us to look for the mud nest that the black mud dauber wasp builds.

 She instructed that we break it up, add water to it and rub it on the swelling our son had. We did exactly that and the swelling went away by the next morning. Pretty remarkable stuff. The Mrs. then narrated an incident that happened when she was working in a cold room in Jos over 15 years ago. She was trying to cut up some frozen fish and over applied pressure on the knife and ended up cutting her fingers.

In panic, seeing how much she was bleeding, her boss was about taking her to the hospital until an hausa meat seller nearby noticed and walked up to them. He told them not to bother going to the hospital if they didn’t want to risk the nearly severed parts of the fingers being cut off. He then proceeded to gather cobwebs off the walls, wrapped them around the affected fingers and sealed it off with plaster. He told her to bear the pain for that day but it will be gone by morning.

 Truly, the pain left the next day and no swelling came up. A week later, the plaster was peeled off and the caked cobwebs removed. Her fingers were showing signs of accelerated healing. The hausa meat seller warned her though that anytime she uses that knife again, she will feel the pain of the cuts and that’s what happened. She had to dump the knife.

In 2006, I had a flare up of painful boils all over my chest region. I don’t know the English or medical term for that but I remember hearing ‘native fire’ being mentioned. From one spot, it spread all over my back and chest. It was painful. It came with a fever too. We were about going to a hospital until a neighbor who knew what it was, directed us to a lady engaged in traditional medicine. 

My mum and I went. It was torture having a shirt on but I managed it. The lady, after examining me, casually said, if I had gone to the hospital, I wouldn’t have come back alive. That the breakout of boils was an attack. I am not one who believes such things but what happened next, cleared my doubts.
This lady, an old woman in her 90s, said she needs to go get some herbs from a forest to treat my case. She only requested for her transport to and from the border between Benue and Cross River state. It was 1700 naira then. 

She refused any money for her services. Her exact words were, “ If I charge money for this, the attack will leave him and come to my body.” 

On her insistence, we gave her the transport money only. She asked us to return in 4 days. The boils kept spreading and became more painful in the meantime.
On the fourth day, we returned and she showed us some leaves which she proceeded to grind and soak in water. I was to drink that water morning and night without missing a day. That stuff was bitter as hell. I took issue with my mom because I felt the whole thing was a waste of time and modern medical care would be better. I told my mom I will go to the hospital but she stood her ground and insisted I don’t. Mothers! What will we do without them?

Shockingly, two days later, the boils started drying off. But the odor was unbearable even to me and yet mom would come stay by my bed, ensuring I never missed taking that concoction. It worked but I still have scars from it and it still itches years later. That old lady died over 13 years ago.

 I can’t help but wonder if at all she managed to pass on that knowledge.

 There are countless people like her with knowledge of natural remedies that to we ‘modern and civilized folks’, appear like witchcraft. But that knowledge they had, passed through generations, kept them and their forebears alive until modern medicine came.
The Chinese developed acupuncture 3000 years ago and it has been widely adopted till date. We can’t afford to throwaway what has worked for our forebears. 

There is a reason why no mass graves due to diseases have ever been found in Africa before the coming of the white man. 

The help Africa needs can only come from within.