The African Herbalist

I suppose you know what a herbalist is, well if you don’t, try googling it. Back in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, a sizeable proportion of people visit herbalists each year for miracle cures on all kinds of ailments, including their love lives and success in their respective businesses. It is really funny because these people believe in whatever concoctions the herbalist give to them, even if it has no evidence what so ever that it will solve their problems.

In order to make herbal concoctions, the herbalist goes into the woods to fetch all kinds of leaves and barks, blend them together and give to their patients, the patients drinks it and somehow it seems to work, could this be due to a placebo effect or is there actual an active ingredient that cures the patients ailment?  

One type of bean, Calabar bean (Physostigma venenosum), comes to mind as this bean was originally discovered in my home town in Nigeria. Before the Calabar bean was discovered, the herbalist used to make it into a concoction for their patients to drink, they usually gave it to people who had some kind of eye problem and incidentally Physostigmine was isolated from the Calabar bean which is now used to treat Glaucoma, what a coincidence. 

The practices of the African herbalists are in contrast to the way pharmacy is practised in the western world, as it seems to be solely reliant on evidence. Surprisingly, the patients of the African herbalist are always happy with his services and always come back for more remedies; maybe, the west can learn a thing or two from the African herbalist.