[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
African medical practices, Ayensu (1991: 194) observed, In African cul-
ture, traditional medical practitioners are always considered to be influen-
tial spiritual leaders as well, using magic and religion along with medi-
cines. He later added, Illness is handled with Man s hidden spiritual
powers and with application of plants that have been found especially to
contain healing powers.
With notable exceptions, such as surgical amputations and Cesarian sec-
tions, West African medical care was more ritualistic than traditional West-
ern medicine. Although some African therapeutics and surgical procedures
were effective, they were based more on observation rather than on scien-
tific investigation or evidence. Besides magical amulets, charms, and fetishes,
some respected, formally trained African American physicians also relied on
herbal and plant treatments. Savitt (1978: 149) observed, Many depended
on Negro herbs and root doctors, or on influential conjurers among the lo-
cal black population. Thus, formally trained African American physicians,
similar to their White counterparts, relied on whatever they could to treat
medical concerns.
Semmes (1983) noted that slaves brought with them African knowledge
of Cesarean sections, midwifery, a method of small pox inoculation, and
other effective medical practices. As noted previously, despite their intro-
duction and use of these effective treatments, Whites generally failed to rec-
ognize African contributions to medical and health care in the antebellum
South and in the years that followed (Bankole 1998; Goodson 1987; Semmes
1983). This is particularly true for their contributions in plant and herbal
remedies that were adopted by White physicians. Bankole (1998: 119)
wrote, There is general consensus that slaves contributed nothing signifi-
cant to the field of medicine or to the medical care they received as slaves
during the antebellum period. Evidence indicates, and Bankole and others
would agree, this perception was unjustified.
African American exclusion from the formal health professions and train-
ing during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was the rule. Records
show that there were exceptions and some African American physicians
were trained formally as early as 1780 in America (Fontenot 1994). Notable
exceptions include the formally trained Dr. John Sweet Rock (1825 1866)
and Dr. James McCune Smith (1811 1865) among others. With discrimi-
nation being so prevalent in formal medical training and in the delivery of
48 Chapter 3
medical care, many African Americans turned to traditional African and al-
ternative approaches to healing.
Medical treatments in the antebellum South were inadequate at best
and slaves had a natural distrust of White medical practices. Many were
forced to turn to their own people for medical care that was rooted in
West African traditions (Bewell 1999). According to Fett (2002: 2) these,
African philosophies and therapies thus proved central to the develop-
ment of African American doctoring traditions. Fontenot (1994) con-
cluded that slave folk practitioners were sought because they shared the
same cultural belief systems regarding healing and medical practice. Be-
well (1999: 199) wrote, In a context where medical treatment was inad-
equate and structured by distrust, slaves were more likely to look to black
folk medicine for treatments, many of which derived from Africa. Most
slaves preferred their own folk practitioners to White physicians (Byrd
and Clayton 2000). Slaves often preferred and relied on self-treatment or
remedies recommended by relatives or friends (Savitt 1978). Warner
Willis (Clayton 1990: 215) of Louisiana commented, In the old times . . .
we re our own druggist and doctor and cured ourself with roots and herbs
and homemade remedies.
In would be wrong to conclude that African American practitioners were
always better than their White counterparts, who bled, purged, voided, and
relied on treatments sometimes worse than the original medical condition.
African American folk practitioners could be every bit as rough on the pa-
tient as White medical care during the period. Not only did slaves often un-
dergo the bleeding and purging so frequently employed by White doctors,
but they also experienced African American efforts to prove that Whites had
no monopoly on cures that killed (Genovese 1974). While White physi-
cians bled, purged, vomited, and overused laxatives, African American prac-
titioners also inflicted their share of misery on patients. For example, Hen-
rietta Butler of Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, recalled a folk treatment for
lockjaw that seems a bit drastic:
He would give us pills when we got sick. I rember one day one of the mens had
lockjaw. That old woman made a fly blister and put on dat poor nigger and let
it stay until it blistered. The [she] too a stiff brush and roughed over that sore
place a when she did, dat nigger hollered and his jaws come unlocked. (Clay-
ton 1990: 38)
In spite of West African cultural beliefs and practices to the contrary,
some African Americans adopted the Western medical practice of bleed-
ing patients and incorporated it into their folk medicine. Some African
American folk practitioners cupped or bled their patients. For example,
the WPA narrative of Irena Blocker (born in Texas) detailed the practice
of cupping:
Slave Folk Practitioners 49
Irena speaks of an aunt, Penny Brashiers, who was an herb doctor whose
practice it was to use a horn cup in the cure of certain miseries which
would not yield to treatment through the virtues of herb concoctions, such
as rheumatism or neuralgia. In some instances she would use a piece of
glass to make an abrasion in the skin over the seat of the misery, then
place the horn cup over the abrasion and suck until a vacuum was formed,
thus bringing about profuse bleeding of the affected parts and the elimina-
tion of the poison which had caused the pain. The horn cup was made from
the small end of a cow s horn. The large end would be trimmed until it was
made smooth and straight so as to fit snugly and encompass the abrasion,
while a small hole would be made in the other and through which
air would be extracted and a powerful vacuum created. This treatment to-
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]