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From: tjs@cbdkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions)
Newsgroups: net.nlang.africa,net.med
Subject: Re: Is there any benefit in African Medicine
Message-ID: <954@cbdkc1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-May-85 08:20:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbdkc1.954
Posted: Fri May  3 08:20:41 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 4-May-85 00:17:10 EDT
References: <315@link.UUCP>
Reply-To: tjs@dkc1.UUCP ( Tom Stanions)
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus
Lines: 74
Xref: watmath net.nlang.africa:9 net.med:1512

<<<<<>>>>>

Artical repeated for the benifit of net.med readers...

In article <315@link.UUCP> aaa@link.UUCP (Wale Akinpelu) writes:
>Before colonization started in African countries, there
>were native people (called traditional doctors) who heal
>sick people. Unfortunately, most of these techniques were
>lost during the colonial period. Now, there is a strong
>attempt in most African Universities to see if they
>recover the lost knowledge. So far the attempt has been
>quite succesful. I should say here that, I am not
>advocating that we should ignore the current Western
>approach of medicine. The point I like us to share
>is, Can we learn anything from the ways African
>Doctors treat sick people? For example, it has proved
>that the reason why african people have less dental
>people is because they eat more calcium food and because
>they use a combination of chewing stick and brush to
>clean their mouth. As a matter of fact, my dentist ask
>me to bring a couple of chewing stick when next I visit
>any African country. Is this theory true?
>
>
>African method of treatment depends heavily on herbs.
>However, there are no dosage and no proper documentation
>to pass knowledge to the younger generation. Does anybody
>have any knowledge on how to pass these knowledge to
>the western countries without any distortion?
>
>Wale Akinpelu
>{allegra!ihnp4,hou2a}!link!aaa


       I was very pleased to see a subject near and dear to me show
       up this early in a news group.

       There is certainly much to be gained by studying any form of
       natural medicine.  Some of us have been contributing to
       net.med our natural approach to problems and we receive lots
       of responses telling us we should not be giving un-proven
       information to people.

       There are people who are very interested in the historical
       uses of herbs.  Its takes a person a great deal of time to
       learn their many uses and therefore few are willing to
       invest.  There are doctors which prescribe herbs and
       homeopatic medicines, however it takes some looking to find
       them.

       As for trying to pass this information to the USA good luck.
       There are many people in America who have a wealth of
       information that few want.  When I advise people to see
       a naturalpathic doctor they usually make jokes.  We would
       love to pass our information on to the general public but
       most don't want it, and most doctors are usually unwilling
       to give the information to their patients so that they can
       decide for themselves.  There are some of us on the net, and
       I would be very pleased to hear anything, from any culture,
       on natural healing.  The best way to pass on this
       information seems to be "one person at a time".  The Natural
       Foods Association has been doing a very good, but painfully
       slow job.  And natural doctors must be very careful because
       they are watched closely by the AMA and other groups.

       I haven't heard of this "chewing stick" but would be
       interested if you can supply more information.  The herb,
       Black Walnut, has historically restored tooth enamel.
       Perhaps there is a connection.

       Anybody with information please contribute to this very
       important discussion.

{allegra|ihnp4}!cbdkc1!tjs