440 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
practical good sense about applying remedies and have a considerable know¬ 
ledge of therapeutics. They make infusions from the leaves, flowers, bark, 
wood, or roots of certain plants to be used as medicine for various diseases. 
There is naturally a good deal of empiricism in their remedies as they will add 
the blood of a white or red cock to the infusion of herbs, which is given to a sick 
man. 1 Sometimes a piece of the bark from which the infusion is made is worn 
round the neck. For some maladies they scarify the skin extensively and are 
very successful in dry-cupping. 
Mr. J. O. Bowhill, the collector for the West Shire District, states that the 
Mananja in that district use many indigenous drugs, such as Bobwana, an 
anodyne ; Jigagaru, a sedative ; Sabu, a carminative ; Nsonga, a medicine for 
the ears ; Petere, “good for asthma” ; Chisungwa (red seeds and bark pounded), 
used as an emetic ; Mpiu, a medicine used in child-birth ; Kanyanja , a drug for 
curing headaches; Pichiru Maungu, another medicine for dulling pain ; Mobi, 
for burns, and Mlaza, a sedative for mad people. 
Charcoal is used for painting wounds and ulcers. Some drugs are employed 
as emetics, others to induce premature labour and abortion. “Charcoal is used” 
(states the Rev. D. C. R. Scott) “ for painting wounds and ulcers with a thick 
black paste. This is guarded by a piece of gourd-shell neatly cut, pierced with 
holes by which strings fasten it over the sore place. Clean leaves also are used 
as dressing. . . . Severe caustic medicines are employed in some instances for 
painting ulcers. ... In cases of neuralgia or rheumatism blood-letting is 
frequently resorted to with a cup made for the purpose. Boils are opened 
and are carefully treated ; small-pox pustules are let out with a thorn and the 
body is protected with banana leaves. Affections of the chest and throat are 
treated by inhaling a steam which can be made from various boiled barks ; 
the body is similarly steamed.” 
The natives throughout this country and elsewhere in Tropical Africa have 
a great belief in curing sickness, especially if it be a fever or a chill, by the 
Turkish bath system. They will shut themselves up in a hut before a blazing 
fire and sweat profusely. Limbs afflicted with rheumatic pains are often 
“ massed.” Massage is very commonly met with among the people round 
Tanganyika and on the west coast of Lake Nyasa, but has probably been 
introduced by the Arabs who are great believers in it. 2 
But there is another side to medicine, in which the belief of the natives 
is equally strong. It can be used empirically. Love potions are made which 
sometimes appear to have this amount of reality in them that they are 
aphrodisiacs to some extent. 
Thieves believe that a medicine or charm can be concocted (called in 
Chinyanja “Chikululu,” by the Wa-nyamwezi of East Central Africa, “Mionga” 3 ) 
which if worn round the thief’s neck will cause any persons with whom he 
comes into contact to fall asleep or else will make him come and go invisible 
to other men. (Sometimes this medicine appears to be compounded of the very 
strong drug Strophanthus , locally known as Kombe , a medicine which is also 
1 Not only are there infusions, but roots or fruits are ground to powder and taken in that form. 
2 The very word “Massage’’ comes from the Arabic Aids. This word is adopted also into Hindustani, 
where Mas krna means “To Mass or Shampoo.” The Arabic word apparently comes from Masa — 
he touched, handled. 
;i The late Colonel J. A. Grant says that this “medicine” is a branch of the Steganotcenia tree. “With 
a branch of it in the hand or by placing the branch over the doorway a man may rob a house without 
detection ; or if he places the branch alongside a goat’s body which has been sacrificed at the crossroads 
all persons will go to sleep where he intends to plunder.” 
