AFRICAN MEDICINE: AN ALTERNATIVE TO ORTHODOX MEDICINE

The emergence of orthodox medicine, which came through Africa's contact with Western civilisation, diverted the attention of Africans from the use of African medicine to the use of orthodox medicine. The European colonizers for their economic gains, condemned African medicine and referred to it as fetish, evil, inaccurate, ineffective, and superstitious. This paper seeks to make a case for a return to the homoeopathic form of treatment with the use of African medicine as against allopathic (orthodox medicine) introduced to the continent. Though African medicine is characterised by some inadequacies, it is still better than orthodox medicine with an allopathic form of treatment and side effects. The paper argued that a more intensive effort, if applied to African medicine, will make it capable of being a better alternative form of treatment for health issues in Africa. To this end, the paper suggests measures needed to strengthen Afro-medical practices and articulates the possible benefits of such an approach. The paper concludes that properly harnessed, African medicine has prospective end results as a form of alternative medicine in Africa.