A few days ago, a traveling salesman arrived at our health center with a briefcase full of traditional medicines. He presented us with a list of 60 different ailments he could cure with his products: hepatitis, malaria, incontinence, etc. While he is from southern Benin, he was trained in traditional medicine at an institute in Mali, and he presented a certification to that effect.
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| The traveling salesman with his briefcase of medicines and handful of charm necklaces |
The pharmacist purchased his hepatitis cure for $2 and was instructed to mix the powder with a cup of honey and to consume one tablespoon every morning and night until the product was finished. I later pointed out to her that the product looked like ash, so she tasted it, declared it tasted like ash, and swore she had been swindled.
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| The hepatitis cure |
The same salesman tried to sell me a powder that he said would ensure that every single person kept every promise to me for the rest of my life. For $10, it sounded like a steal! He instructed me to mix it with lotion and spread it on my skin. He was also selling charm necklaces to put around children to help them with teething and more.
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| This powder will make everyone I know keep their promises to me for the rest of my life. |
Before he left, he made a prophecy to my friend. He said that she was the victim of malicious witchcraft and told her to do kindness to twins in order to set things straight. He himself claimed to be the only surviving brother of a set of triplets, which in the Beninese mindset means that he absorbed the powers of his dead brothers and is now somewhat superhuman.
While some of the products may be legitimate, obviously parts of what the salesman said would raise a red flag to any American. Traditional medicine, however, is very popular with the Beninese, and it is even recognized by the Ministry of Health.
One place I often see sellers of traditional medicine is on the bus to or from Cotonou. A salesman always boards the bus about halfway through the trip, and he hawks his wares to a captive audience for 30 minutes until he can catch a bus in the opposite direction. Like many traditional medicines, some of his products are claimed to have six or more purposes: you can cure cavities and have a memory aid all in one bottle!
However, one need not depend on a traveling salesman for such products. Whenever a Beninese person is sick, his first recourse is generally home-brewed traditional medicine. He will go out and find the necessary roots or leaves to make a cure for his ailment. When my friend's baby was a picky eater, for instance, she prepared a special brew that was to be used in two ways to induce appetite: she bathed her son in it, and she also gave him some to drink.
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| Our pharmacist prepared this drink to cure an ailment. |
Since I work at the health center, I encourage villagers to rely on the proven medicines we sell there, but my advice often falls on deaf ears. Even my colleagues at the health center use traditional medicine. When I described to a school principal the rigorous testing our Western medicine undergoes before being marketed, he dismissed such testing, saying, "In Benin, if you give a medicine to ten people and two get better, we say it's a cure." Given how much cheaper traditional medicine is than Western medicine, it is no surprise that we have a hard time getting sick people to seek treatment at the health center.
Wait...did the pharmacist really have hepatitis? It's somewhat disconcerting that health care professionals in Benin are willing to try traditional medicine. Shouldn't they be setting examples for others, at least on the health front?
ReplyDeleteMy colleagues at the health center practice healthy behaviors to varying degrees. Several, if not all, of them use traditional medicines. All but one practice open-air defecation, which spreads diseases. One of my former colleagues has been the source of a great deal of misinformation, encouraging a mutual friend to use traditional medicines for her baby, telling her not to practice exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, and instructing her to insert a whittled bar of soap in her child's anus to force the baby to defecate twice a day.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, but not surprising. Some people in this country have become sceptical of modern medicine and have, at least in part, turned to alternatives. Maybe because of side effects or feeling as though we are being over medicated. I just heard of a case here where the baby is being treated with blood transfusions, but the mother has some training in herbal medicines and also treats the child with what she thinks is helpful and the child was found to have mercury poisoning, we assume from the herbal. So, as we say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
ReplyDeleteJean Ralley
I am sure some of the traditional remedies work, but I prefer the confirmation of scientific studies first. I do think that some traditional medicine salesmen are simply charlatans, and I am particularly skeptical when the same product improves memory, cures cavities, and protects against malaria.
ReplyDeleteI, too, experienced the bus sales people. The one on the trip to the airport seemed to do fairly well in sales. And yes, some of his products fixed a variety of maladies.
ReplyDeleteI laughed when I read the comment that if a traditional medicine helped 2/10, they considered it a cure. Sounds like it could simply be a placebo effect. On the other hand, if there are no other alternatives, sign me up!
While I agree with you in preferring tested modern medicine, I believe that there are traditional medicines that can be helpful. Some of our modern medicines are from century-old remedies.