**1. Introduction**

The development and use of traditional herbal medicine (THM) have a very long historical background that corresponds to the Stone Age. In the continent of Africa, the practice of traditional healing and magic is much older than some of the other traditional medical sciences [1] and seems to be much more prevalent compared to conventional medicine. African traditional medicine is a

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2019 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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].

**2. Concept of illness and disease**

**3. Herbal medicine**

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.

Herbal Medicines in African Traditional Medicine http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.80348 193

Herbal medicine is a part and parcel of and sometimes synonymous with African traditional medicine. It is the oldest and still the most widely used system of medicine in the world today. It is used in all societies and is common to all cultures. Herbal medicines, also called botanical medicines, vegetable medicines, or phytomedicines, as defined by World Health Organization (WHO) refers to herbs, herbal materials, herbal preparations, and finished herbal products that contain whole plants, parts of plants, or other plant materials, including leaves, bark, berries, flowers, and roots, and/or their extracts as active ingredients intended for human therapeutic use or for other benefits in humans and sometimes animals [10, 11]. Herbal medicine is a special and prominent form of traditional medicine, in which the traditional healer, in this case known as the herbalist, specializes in the use of herbs to treat various ailments. Their role is so remarkable since it arises from a thorough knowledge of the medicinal properties of indigenous plants and the pharmaceutical steps necessary in turning such plants into drugs such as the selection, compounding, dosage, efficacy, and toxicity. The use of herbal medicines appears to be universal in different cultures. However, the plants used for the same ailments and the modes of treatment may vary from place to place. The plants used for medicinal purposes are generally referred to as medicinal plants, i.e., any plant in which one or more of its organs/parts contain substances that can be used for therapeutic purposes, or in a more modern concept, the constituents can be used as precursors for the synthesis

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

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

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.

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