Medicinal plants help keep children healthy in South Africa

[fyzygy]

https://theconversation.com/medicinal-plants-help-keep-children-healthy-in-south-africa-61-species-were-recorded-219719

 

 

[Ishmael Fleishman]

The interesting subplot is that their is a strong resistance amongst whites and black towards using native South African plants.

 

Due to Apartheid instilling into them that any knowledge from a black person is inferior to white man knowledge.

 

This is why native South African herbs are poorly studied by South Africans.

 

In the video below the presenter touches on the South African perspective on indigenous knowledge.

 

 

 

 

[fyzygy]

1 hour ago, Ishmael Fleishman said:

strong resistance amongst whites and black towards using native South African plants.

A "mere" 61 species documented in this study of S. African childhood diseases, of an estimated 30000 plants known to traditional healers. The authors point out that the cost of western medicine is prohibitively high, which has led to a resurgence of interest in traditional plant medicines. The study itself does not associate the use of traditional plant medicine with better or worse health outcomes (such as child mortality rates) in rural areas. But I think one of the study's implications is that, maybe not all of these traditional remedies are effective. 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282113#pone-0282113-t003

 

[Ishmael Fleishman]

On 13/02/2024 at 11:58 AM, fyzygy said:

maybe not all of these traditional remedies are effective.  

 

Elaine Elisabetsky, PhD, ethnopharmacologist and professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, makes an interesting argument about effectiveness. The Western model is reductive; it seeks to isolate a single compound that can be patented, put into a pill, or injected. However, traditional medicine does work that way and has a plethora of administrations routes, and we should be weary of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

 

Many plants are not effective in the Western medical model; this does not mean that they are ineffective per se. We need to be aware of our biases.

 

 

[Slocombe]

On 13/02/2024 at 9:51 AM, Ishmael Fleishman said:

The interesting subplot is that their is a strong resistance amongst whites and black towards using native South African plants.

 

Same as here then

[Ishmael Fleishman]

I grew up in South Africa; my mother was a coloured South African, and my father was a European. I know firsthand the hatred that festers in that culture. The hatred of anything tainted by colour. Everyone aspires to be white and to adopt the white man's ways. It is rare to find South Africans who take pride in being African. Apartheid bred a generation of people who loathed themselves. Like many Australians, South Africans see themselves as Europeans first and foremost and for those who cannot claim to be white have little to nothing else to hold on to.

 

As a child, I was taught to hate Kaffirs and Muslims. I experienced how apartheid ripped people, families, and communities apart.

 

Let me tell you a story from my childhood.

 

I was walking home from school one day; I would have been about 8 years old. It had been raining that day, and I had to walk a distance to get home from the bus stop. As I was walking along the side of the dirt road, I came to a bus stop at which local black workers and servants were waiting for their bus to get them home. For they were not allowed to be on the street after sundown in my white-only neighborhood. As I approached the stop, an elderly black man turned around and, upon seeing me, stepped aside for me. As he did, he stepped into a muddy puddle of water. I remembered he was wearing brown leather dress shoes, probably the only pair of shoes that poor man owned. Looking down at his wet shoes, he apologised for being in my way. I will always remember his words, "Sorry, Boss.".

 

This is what Apartheid did to us all. It broke this man's spirit and my heart. This is why I always fight for the underdog.

 

Things have only gotten worse in the last 35 years. South Africa is a failed state because it never healed from its collective trauma. It could have been a world leader, the equal of Australia or Canada. Instead the rats are fleeing the sinking ship, stealing everything they can in the process.

 

It is this context that South Africa must be understood.