Use of plants in somali traditional medicine

Published in Vol. IV Studies in Humanities and Natural Sciences “Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Somali Studies”, 1983

Authors: Abdullahi Sheikh Elmi, Abdullahi Mohamed Ahmed, Yacoub Aden Abdi

Abstract

Traditional medicine uses different mehods for curing diseases. Somali traditional medicine could be divided into two main systems: magico-religious and practical treatment and herbalism.

Practical treatment and herbalism deal more properly with organic and physical disorders. Several hundred plants are used in somali traditional medicine and the confidence of the population to it is quite great. Healers do not consider the plant as a simple physical entity. Greater part of herbalists feel that the effect of a plant depends not only on its power, but also on the relationship between the collector and the plant itself.

A multidisciplinary research on medical plants has been conducted by the Somali National University with different aims:

inventory and botanical identification of plants used in traditional medicine; literature survey of the identified plants; verification of efficiency, safety and toxicity of selected plants; pharmacological and toxicological evaluation of isolated active substances; production of drugs based on plants containing therapeutically valuable substances.

This research was conducted considering important the impact and spread of these kind of practices and the identified need of throwing a light on the “jungle” of traditional herbalists. The authors suggest that a policy was made to evaluate the healers and certified their training.  

Material kindly provided by the Roma 3 University's Somali Archive

Connect with us

AMEB Mother and child care Italia
amebitalia@gmail.com

IPSIA
ipsia@acli.it

GRT
grt@grtitalia.org

Privacy & Cookie Policy

About SOMAR

The platform Somali Medical Archives has been developed as a tool to promote cooperation between Somali health professional in their mother country and abroad, engaging the diaspora for the improvement of Somali Health Services.

 
SOMAR Somali Medical Archives is an idea by Edna Moallin Abdirahman

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Read more
User state
Joomla user state
Accept
Decline
Marketing
Set of techniques which have for object the commercial strategy and in particular the market study.
Adform
Accept
Decline