Tag Archives: Africa

Diary of a doctor

May 24, 2023

Perpetual Enefuwa Salami Benin City, Nigeria   Image by Macro Vector on Freepik The following is a work of fiction. It was my first day working as a resident physician at Emis Clinic. I recall crying my eyes out the day I finally received a transfer letter. I was elated, accidentally booted my dog to […]

Book review: My Years with the British Red Cross

January 18, 2023

Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover of My Years with The British Red Cross: A Chief Executive Reflects by Sir Nick Young. The Red Cross is known worldwide as a great humanitarian achievement. The charity was founded by Swiss businessman Henri Dunant, who was moved by the lack of care available to people who […]

Entomophagy: History, global food shortage, and climate change

August 4, 2022

James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States   Figure 1 – Khoisan – Igniting a Fire On a recent wildlife adventure to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, our group of adventurers was treated to an afternoon walk with a group of local Khoisan villagers. They were eager to show us how they were able to […]

Denis Parsons Burkitt

June 27, 2022

JMS Pearce Hull, England   Fig 1. 7-year-old boy with Burkitt’s lymphoma involving his right mandible (A) before treatment and (B) after treatment by Burkitt.3   Aphorisms from wise medical men and women have fallen out of fashion. Because each line is to a degree debatable, one of my favorites is: Attitudes are more important […]

Robert Koch, M.D., and the cure for sleeping sickness: ethics versus economics

March 28, 2022

Howard Fischer  Uppsala, Sweden   Ugandans with their identity tags. 1907. In the activity report of the commission sent to East Africa to study sleeping sickness during the year 1906/1907 by R. Koch, M. Beck, and F. Kleine, p. 320. La Société francophone de médecine tropicale et santé internationale. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Primum non nocere. […]

Gruesome traditional medical practices in Nigeria

October 21, 2021

Ofor, Joshua Obase-Otumoyi Calabar, Nigeria   Hamar woman with scarification in Turmi, Ethiopia. 2012. Photo by Bernard Gagnon. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. Among the various traditional practices that victimize women and girls in Nigeria, female genital mutilation (FGM) is the most reprehensible. It consists of removing part or all of the sensitive female genital […]

The Sufi healers of Sudan: caring for those without care

October 21, 2021

Ahmed Elhag  Albany County, New York, United States   Fig 1. Dervishes in Omdurman, Sudan gather at the Shrine of Shiekh Hamid Nil, a 19th century Sufi Saint of the Qadriyya Sufi order. Photo by the author. Traditional medicine has been the dominant form of healthcare for much of human history. To many today, traditional […]

The navel of the world: belly buttons, innies and outies

September 17, 2021

John Raffensperger Fort Meyers, Florida, United States   Rounded stones near Ahu Te Pito Kura on the north-eastern coast of Easter Island. Thought to symbolize the “center of the world” to the culture of the Polynesian people who first arrived at the island. 2013. Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 In […]

The man who hated hospital

August 11, 2021

Emeka Chibuikem V. Enugu State, Nigeria   Our Beautiful Life. Photo by Yusuff Suleiman. 2018. CC BY-SA 4.0. Via Wikimedia. An emergency patient was in critical condition. The staff nurse on duty moved swiftly to attend to him. Then she went to the waiting hall to meet with the patient’s family and asked them why […]

C. Louis Leipoldt: The polymath physician and literary giant

July 8, 2021

Stephen Finn South Africa   Fig 1: Afrikaans poet C. Louis Leipoldt c. 1910. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Looking out across a landscape of dramatic mountains and purple and orange sunsets is a small cave. Listen carefully in this desolate place in a western corner of South Africa, and you will hear in the distance […]