thought they were not destructive; 33.5% stated they were valuable as a tourist attraction;
and 8.2% of respondents thought they could be valuable as servants!
Health
Malaria is a major scourge of people living around Budongo Forest. While animal
species have evidently developed genetic resistance to it, humans have only partly done
so. The genetic condition known as sickle cell (Haemoglobin S), common in malarious
areas, has the disadvantage that in the homozygote person (SS) it causes severe anaemia
and early death. A proportion of infant mortality is due to this. The heterozygous person
(AS) has protection from malaria. The normal non-sickle cell homozygote (AA) found
in non-malarious areas has no resistance to malaria. Whereas travellers to Africa can
take preventive drugs, local people cannot afford to buy them and so have to rely on
native treatments or Western drugs for a cure after they have contracted the disease.
Malaria is known locally as ‘fever’. In fact, when it comes to medical treatment this is
unhelpful. Fever can be caused by sleeping sickness, typhoid, cholera, plague, yellow
fever, encephalitis, heat stroke or snake bite, among other things. Nevertheless, in Uganda,
‘fever’ is most often interpreted to mean an attack of malaria. In Western-style clinics
a blood test ensues to check for evidence of this disease, but elsewhere there is no test.
The most popular method of treatment, and the one most people automatically favour,
is purchase of tablets at local dispensaries or drug shops situated in or near village
centres. Johnson (1993) found that the vast majority of her respondents preferred tablets
as against traditional herbal remedies or witchcraft (Table 10.2).
Whether they can afford a full course of treatment is another matter. A person with
little money will buy just one tablet or two. The person in charge of a drug shop may not
be qualified, and may sell drugs without a clear idea of what they are for. This is less
likely to happen in a clinic or dispensary. In dispensaries there is more medical knowl-
edge and malaria may be treated by direct injection of quinine. Injections bring their
own problems. There is also the fundamental problem of diagnosis: if the diagnosis is
wrong, no matter how effective the treatment for a particular disease it will be useless.
This aspect — the effectiveness of treatment with modern methods — was taken up
by Sutton et al. (1996). They point out that Uganda suffered a rude shock to its health
system when Idi Amin expelled the Asian population, and later alienated most other
198 The human foreground
Table 10.2: Frequency of types of disease treatments
recorded by Johnson (1993).
Methods of treatment Per cent of respondents
(N224)
Tablets from dispensary 93.9
Self-applied plant medicines 36.2
Traditional doctor visited 8.0
Health centre visited 3.3
Witch doctor visited 1.4