Indigenous Theories of Contagious Disease

Far from being the province of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery, indigenous understanding of contagious disease in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world very often parallels western concepts of germ theory, according to the author. Labeling this "indigenous contagion theory (ICT)," Green synthesizes the voluminous ethnographic work on tropical diseases and remediesas well as 20 years of his own studies and interventions on sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, and traditional healers in southern Africato demonstrate how indigenous peoples generally conceive of contagious diseases as having naturalistic causes. His groundbreaking work suggests how western medical practitioners can incorporate ICT to better help native peoples control contagious diseases.