African Traditional Medicine and Orthodox Medicine in Conflict in Nigeria: An Evaluation

Abstract

Medicine is generally known as the study, diagnosing, preventing and eliminating or treatment of disease. Treatment of diseases has been received from the generation of our earliest fathers. Before what is universally understood today as orthodox medicine, there has been a means of diagnosing and treatment of diseases in different parts of the world known as traditional medicine. It is believed by majority that the orthodox medicine is a derivation and refined manner of the earlier traditional medicine. However, the orthodox medicine wholly depends on the scientific biological or physiological diagnosis of every disease while in traditional medicine all aspects of human person are diagnosed since it is believed traditionally that some diseases are of spiritual basis and it was believed that a person’s sin can be the source or cause of his or her sickness. Leprosy in the Jewish tradition is an example. As such, in the view of some authors, African traditional beliefs consider the human being as being made up of physical, spiritual, moral, and social aspects. The functioning of these four 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 his/her being as well. The research employed primary and secondary methods and it has proved that there are some diseases that defied the scientific diagnoses; also there are some diseases that demand the scientific diagnoses for its discovery and proper treatment. The focus of this research centres on the African Traditional Religion medicine and orthodox medicine to find out the reason for the conflict between the duo and the possible solution. As such, this research tries to mediate on the conflicts between African traditional medicine and orthodox medicine, showing the importance of their integration for a healthier society.