**2. Concept of illness and disease**

form of holistic health care system that is organized into three levels of specialty, which include divination, spiritualism, and herbalism, though these may overlap in some situations [2, 3].

A traditional healer is one who provides medical care in the community that he lives, using herbs, minerals, animal parts, incantations, and other methods, based on the cultures and beliefs of his people. He must be seen to be competent, versatile, experienced, and trusted [4]. In other definitions, priestesses, high priests, witch doctors, diviners, midwives, seers or spiritualists, and herbalists are included. Traditional medical practitioner (TMP), however, seems to be a modern acceptable concept agreed on by the Scientific Technical and Research Commission (STRC) of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), which is now African Union (AU). In specific cultures, these people go by their local names, depending on their tribe, such as *Sangoma* or *inyanga* in South Africa, *akomfo, bokomowo* in Ghana, *niam-niam*, *shaman,* or *mugwenu* in Tanzania, *nga:nga* in Zambia, *shaman or laibon* in Kenya, and *babalawo*, *dibia,* or *boka*, etc. in Nigeria [5]. It is commonplace to see traditional healers dressed in certain peculiar

Traditional medicine is viewed as a combination of knowledge and practice used in diagnosing, preventing, and eliminating disease. This may rely on past experience and observations handed down from generation to generation either verbally, frequently in the form of stories, or spiritually by ancestors or, in modern times, in writing [6]. It has also been said that before attaining knowledge in traditional African medicine, one is often required to be initiated into a secret society, as many characteristics of this form of medicine can only be passed down to initiates. The importance of traditional medicine, however, dwindled during the colonial period, whereby it was viewed as inferior to Western medicine. It was thus banned completely in some countries due to its association with witchcraft /voodoo, supernatural, and magical implications, in which case, it was also termed "*juju"* (Nigeria) or "native medicine," since it made use of charms and symbols which were used to cast or remove spells. Some forms of treatment may also involve ritual practices such as animal sacrifices to appease the gods, if the ailment was envisaged to be caused by afflictions from the gods, especially in the treatment of the mentally ill patients.

attires, with head bands, feathers, and eyes painted with native chalk.

192 Herbal Medicine

**Figure 1.** Spiritual healer or *Sangoma* from South Africa (Source—Ancient Origins).

**Figure 1** below is a typically adorned traditional healer from South Africa.

In African traditional setting, there was always an explanation as to why someone was suffering from a certain disease at a particular time. According to Ayodele [7], diseases mostly revolve around witchcraft/sorcery, gods or ancestors, natural, as well as inherited. Illness in the African society is different from the allopathic Western medicine point of view. Illness is believed to be of natural, cultural, or social origin [8]. Cultural or social illness is thought to be related to supernatural causes such as angered spirits, witchcraft, or alien/evil spirits, even for conditions now known to be well understood in modern medicine such as hypertension, sickle-cell anemia, cardiomyopathies, and diabetes. African traditional beliefs consider the human being as being made up of physical, spiritual, moral, and social aspects. The functioning of these three aspects in harmony signified good health, while if any aspect should be out of balance, it signified sickness. Thus, the treatment of an ill person involves not only aiding his/her physical being but may also involve the spiritual, moral, and social components of being as well. Many traditional medical practitioners are good psychotherapists, proficient in faith healing (spiritual healing), therapeutic occultism, circumcision of the male and female, tribal marks, treatment of snake bites, treatment of whitlow, removal of tuberculosis lymphadenitis in the neck, cutting the umbilical cord, piercing ear lobes, removal of the uvula, extracting a carious tooth, abdominal surgery, infections, midwifery, and so on. According to Kofi-Tsekpo [9], the term "African traditional medicine" is not synonymous with "alternative and complementary medicine." African traditional medicine is the African indigenous system of health care and therefore cannot be seen as an alternative.
