Health care in Africa in the early days of the 20th century, at a time when the influence of the missionaries to Africa was not widespread, had a definite dimension to it that was not physical. The doctors or herbalists of those days believed that symptoms of ill health were attributable, in some way, to the patient’s way of life, or their way of thinking—enmity, an unresolved quarrel, lingering hatred, unforgiveness, a sinful nature, or some mysterious incident in the past. Local people treated ailments with herbs, as well as with incantations, divinations, and libations. Portents and omens, restitution and reparation, played a big part in the belief of both the cause and cure of disease.
Today, in the 21st century, traces of these traditional beliefs still remain in the approach to health care in Africa, even though the Western way of thinking regarding treatment and healing sickness pervades health-care policies in practically every country on the continent. Many erudite scholars and people of learning and culture still attribute, not only ill health, but also ill fortune, to unforeseen, spiritual, or mysterious elements which, they believe, influence their physical experience and well-being. Even some men and women of the cloth also trace the root cause of certain health problems directly to witchcraft, pacts with the devil, fear, sin, or plain ignorance. What is the point here?
Do not African traditional practices of long ago hint at the overlooked mental nature of health?
