attributed to the fact that African indigenous medical systems have always
been an oral tradition, whereby knowledge is passed from healer to trainee
by word of mouth during a long apprenticeship and no written record is
maintained. The effect has been to render African TMP inaccessible to prac-
titioners trained in the western allopathic system and to retard the entry into
formal healthcare of potentially useful therapeutic agents derived from
African plant species. This is borne out by the fact that only a handful of
African indigenous remedies have found their way into western pharma-
copoeias (Table 5.1), in contrast with the many European, American, Asian
and Oriental TMs that have merited monographs in earlier and current
editions of the British, European and US pharmacopoeias.
Definitions
The WHO has defined^26 indigenous healers as ‘a group of persons recognised
by the community in which they live as being competent to provide health
by using vegetable, animal, and mineral substances and other methods
based on the social, cultural and religious backgrounds as well as on the
Traditional medical practice in Africa | 83Figure 5.1 Africa: political map. Published with the permission of the Africa Institute of South Africa.