West African studies

by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

These apothecaries are, as aforesaid, learned in the properties of herbs, and they are the surgeons, in so far as surgery is ventured on. A witch doctor would not dream of performing an operation. Amongst these apothecaries there are lady doctors, who, though a bit dangerous in pharmacy, yet, as they do not venture on surgery, are, on the whole, safer than their confrères, for African surgery is heroic.

Many of the apothecaries’ medical methods are fairly sound, however. The Dualla practitioner is truly great on poultices for extracting foreign substances from wounds, such as bits of old iron cooking pot, a very frequent foreign substance for a man to get into him in West Africa, owing to pots being broken up and used as bullets. Almost incredible stories are told by black men and white in Cameroons concerning the efficiency of these poultices; one I heard from a very reliable white authority there of a man who had been shot with bits of iron pot in the thigh. The white doctor extracted several pieces, and declared he had got them all out; but the man went on suffering and could not walk, so finally a country doctor was called in, and he applied his poultice. In a few minutes he removed it, and on its face lay two pieces of iron pot. The white doctor said they had been in the poultice all the time, but he did not carry public opinion with him, for the patient recovered rapidly.

The Negroes do not seem to me to go in for baths in medical treatment quite so much as the Bantu; they hold more with making many little incisions in the skin round a swollen joint, then encasing it with clay and keeping a carefully tended fire going under it. But the Bantu is given greatly to baths, accompanied by massage, particularly in the treatment of that great West African affliction, rheumatism. The Mpongwe make a bath for the treatment of this disease by digging a suitably sized hole in the ground and putting into it seven herbs—whereof I know the native names only, not the scientific—and in addition in go cardamoms and peppers. Boiling water is then plentifully poured over these, and the patient is laid on and covered with the parboiled green stuff. Next a framework of twigs is placed over him, and he is hastily clayed up to keep the steam in, only his head remaining above ground. In this bath he is sometimes kept a few hours, sometimes a day and a half. He is liable to give the traveller who may happen suddenly on him while under treatment the idea that he is an atrocity; but he is not; and when he is taken out of the bath-poultice he is rubbed and kneaded all over, plenty more hot water being used in the process, this indeed being the palladium of West Coast physic.

The Fjort tribe do not bury their rheumatic patients until they are dead and all their debts paid, but they employ the vapour bath. My friend, Mr. R. E. Dennet, who has for the past eighteen years lived amongst the Fjort, and knows them as no other white man does, and knows also my insatiable thirst for any form of West African information, has kindly sent me some details of Fjort medical methods, which I give in his own words—“The Fjort have names for many diseases; aches are generally described as tanta ki tanta; they say the head suffers Ntu tanta ki tanta, the chest suffers Mtima tanta ki tanta, and so on. Rheumatism that keeps to the joints of the bones and cripples the sufferer is called Ngoyo, while ordinary rheumatism is called Macongo. They generally try to cure this disease by giving the sufferers vapour baths. They put the leaves of the Nvuka into a pot of boiling water, and place the pot between the legs of the patient, who is made to sit up. They then cover up the patient and the pot with coverings.

“They try to relieve the local pain by spluttering the affected part with chalk, pepper, and logwood, and the leaves of certain plants that have the power of blistering.

“Small-pox they try to cure by smearing the body of the patient over with the pulped leaves of the mzeuzil. Palm oil is also used. These patients are taken to the woods, where a hut is built for them, or not, according to the wealth and desire of their relations. If poor they are often allowed to die of starvation. A kind of long thin worm that creeps about under the eyelid is called Loyia, and is skilfully extracted by many of the natives by means of a needle or piece of wood cut to a sharp point.

“Blind boils they call Fvuma, and they cure them by splintering over them the pulped root Nchechi, mixed with red and white earth. Leprosy they call Boisi, ague Chiosi, matter from the ear Mafina, rupture Sangafulla. But diseases of the lungs, heart, liver, and spleen seem to puzzle the native leeches and many natives die from these terrible ills. Cupping and bleeding, which they do with the hollow horns of the goat and the sharpened horn of a kid, are the remedies usually resorted to.

“All persons are supposed to have the power to give their enemies these different sicknesses. Amulets, frontlets, bracelets, and waistbands charged with medicines are also used as either charms or cures.

“A woman who was stung by a scorpion went nearly mad, and, rushing into the river, tried to drown herself. I tried my best to calm her and cure her by the application of a few simple remedies, but she kept us awake all night, and we had to hold her down nearly the whole time. I called in a native surgeon to see if he could do anything, and he spluttered some medicine over her, and, placing himself opposite to her, shouted at her and the evil spirit that was in her. She became calmer, and the surgeon left us. As I was afraid of a relapse, I sent the woman to be cured in a town close by. The Princess of the town picked out the sting of the scorpion with a needle, and gave the woman some herbs, which acted as a strong purge, and cured her. As the Nganga bilongo (apothecary) is busy curing the patient, he generally has a white fowl tied to a string fastened to a peg in the ground close to him. I have described this in Seven Years among the Fjort.”