In this book, Dr. John M. Janzen describes patterns of healing among the BaKongo of Lower Zaire in Africa, who, like many peoples elsewhere, utilize cosmopolitan medicine alongside traditional healing practices. What criteria, he asks, determine the choice of the alternative therapies? And what is their institutional interrelationship? In seeking answers, he analyzes case histories and cultural contexts to explore what social transactions, decisionmaking, illness and therapy classifications, and resource allocations are used in the choice of therapy by the ill, their kinfolk, friends, asociates, and specialized practitioners. From the Preface: This book presents an "on the ground" ethnographic account of how medical clients of one region of Lower Zaire diagnose illness, select therapies, and evaluate treatments, a process we call "therapy management." The book is intended to clarify a phenomenon of which central African clients have long been cognizant, namely, that medical systems are used in combination. Our study is aimed primarily at readers interested in the practical issues of medical decision-making in an African country, the cultural content of symptoms, and the dynamics of medical pluralism, that is, the existence in a single society of differently designed and conceived medical systems.
... Zaire river ( Janzen 1978 ) . Western - introduced cosmopolitan medicine and therapies deriving from Kongo tradition were studied . Close observation of cases in the " quest for therapy " revealed that diagnostic decisions and choices of ...
Health in a Fragile State: Science, Sorcery, and Spirit in the Lower Congo
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2000 in the subject Theology - Practical Theology, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: In this essay I will look at the medical system of the people of Kongo in Lower Zaire.
... The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire ( Janzen 19786 , 7 , 191 ) . But we may legitimately assert the converse of Janzen and Arkin- stall's proposition : The quest for therapy is about rectifying perceived abnor- malities . Ipso facto ...
Ngoma, in Bantu, means drum, song, performance, and healing cult or association.
This volume shows how the study of medicine can provide new insights into colonial identity, and the possibility of accomodating multiple perspectives on identity within a single narrative.
" --Religion "It is a book that is remarkably well written, bothfor its readability and for its explanatory value.... the book is a superb startingplace for understanding Kongo religion, and will work as an introduction to Africanreligion ...
This innovative book is a forward-looking reflection on mental decolonisation and the postcolonial turn in Africanist scholarship.
Together with the increasing possibilities offered by genetic engineering, clinical biochemistry holds the promise that a ... Molecules and Lifo: Essays in the History of Biochemistry, New York, Wiley, I973· --, A Skeptical Biochemist, ...
This text provides an account of the development of medical science in its various branches, and includes discussions of the medical profession and its institutions, and the impact of medicine upon populations, economic development, culture ...