Spent the last few hours of the night in the 'big theatre.' A three month old baby came in with her mother this afternoon in respiratory distress and a large, distended abdomen. The baby had been ill for several days, was increasingly fussy, and not feeding well. She was evaluated by Dr. Clara and thought to have a bowel obstruction. Abdominal XR showed a belly full of gas. Dr. Brown, the visiting surgeon was called in. After much discussion, they decided to do surgery.
The real difficulty then became the anesthesia and intubation. The child was in severe respiratory distress by the time we got her to the theatre. Dr. S struggled but was finally successful with the intubation. They exploratory surgery was quickly done. . . and no source of obstruction found. In fact the entire bowel was distended, indicating an illeus (abscence of peristalsis/bowel motility). Then the question became, why does this child have an illeus? The surgeon, whose surgery yielded no answers immediately questioned if it was African muti (medicine from the traditional healer).
I have noticed that in several cases when we cant explain what has happened or is happening, someone always brings up the question of muti. I wonder if this is a legitamate concern or just a way for us to 'explain' something that we otherwise can't. Just the other day someone was saying that 'the African' is always looking for an explanation or cause of illness. That a swelling or growth or blindness or stomach pains can be caused by your uncle's brother's sins or can be caused by a curse from your enemies. But are we also guilty of scapegoating? If we can't explain or fix it, then surely it was caused by something out of our realm of knowledge, something like African muti. I wonder, is it as absurd for a doctor to blame muti for an illness as it is for a patient to believe that it was caused by a curse from one's enemies?
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