Yoruba Medicine

According to the Yoruba of Western Nigeria, most illness is caused by the activity of germs or tiny worms in the body which can be either controlled or expelled by the judicious use of herbal medicine. This book is an unusual account and analysis of a series of conversations with Yoruba herbalists about the nature of their craft. Buckley shows that Yoruba medicinal knowledge is systematically similar to ideas found in Yoruba social life and traditional religion, and offers a paradigm for understanding Yoruba culture that plays a similar role to paradigms in western scientific thought.