Preface
My good friend, Dr Gill Scott, and I were sitting in the gardens of the
Mount Nelson Hotel (affectionately known as ‘The Nellie’) in Cape Town
discussing Traditional African Medicine. We both thought that it would be
good to bring descriptions of a representative number of traditional medical
systems together in one text, aimed at academics, students and interested
members of the public. I was delighted when Gill immediately agreed to
contribute a chapter.
Over one-third of the population in developing countries lack access to
essential medicines. Countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America use tradi-
tional medicine to help meet some of their primary health care needs. In
Africa, up to 80% of the population uses traditional medicine for primary
health care. The provision of safe and effective Traditional Medicine
Therapies could become a critical tool to increase access to health care.
Migration, both within countries and across continents, means that host
communities, in particular health care providers working in multicultural
environments, may well come into contact with unfamiliar practices. A
compact yet wide ranging source of knowledge such as that provided in this
book will help them understand the basics of medical systems that are being
used by patients, often concurrently with western medicine. However,
health care providers need more than just knowledge, for it is necessary to
understand and effectively interact with people across cultures. In short,
there is a need to develop cultural competence. With this in mind a method
by which orthodox health care providers can approach patients using their
traditional practices in a sympathetic manner is introduced in Chapter 3.
Although it specifically refers to North American aboriginal medicine it can
be adapted to other health care environments.
This book covers medical systems practised on five continents, chosen to
offer readers an awareness of different approaches to health care around the
world. For example, Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurvedic medicine,
two complete health systems that form the basis of almost all Asian medi-
cine, are covered in detail, using material derived from both observation and
published literature. Medicine from the Amazonian region of Colombia is
presented through a series of fascinating interviews with local healers that