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:
“For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection,—for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)
“After you eat always take a walk, and you’ll never have to go to a medicine shop.”
—Chinese proverb.
Rhyme.
“In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)