Medicine
Disease and ill health are viewed in terms of obvious surface symptoms (like fever, rash, swelling) and the "underlying causes" of those symptoms (e.g., witchcraft, being caught by a swearing medicine). Symptoms can be relieved by traditional or Western medicine, but these have no effect on the underlying cause(s), which require divination and the proper supernatural response.
Read more about this topic: Temne People
Famous quotes containing the word medicine:
“No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour’s life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“As there is a use in medicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)