CURES FOR THE “LOCAL DISEASE”
Freguesia de São Domingos, ilha de Santiago. Collection of 9 panoramic lithographies of Cape Verde islands, Anonymous c. 1864; A.H.U., Colecção Iconografia, Estampas
CURES FOR THE “LOCAL DISEASE”
During the first centuries of colonisation of the Cape Verde Islands most of the Portuguese that got sick from the “Local Disease”, died. In order to avoid it,
treatments were being found to treat this illness.
The LOCAL treatments used medicinal herbs applied in clysters, diaphoretics and herbal teas. They were well prepared by the healers and their slaves who
knew medicinal plants.
“There are household medicines or good traditional healers if we want to treat this disease according to local custom (...). These women are famous for the
application of their treatments (...). There is a woman, a great healer, named Madalena or Lela according to the language of this country. Her treatment
consisted of broths and bits of chicken, very few soups, all made by her. The broths were made with certain vegetables.
The medicines consisted of clysters, herbal teas and diaphoretics; and all this she made from herbs, roots, barks of trees and shrubs picked up in the fields by
slaves she trained to know all the herbs. They never delayed in returning as the land had many medicinal trees, plants and herbs.” (Text translated and
adapted from Manuel Roiz Lucas de Senna, Dissertação sobre as ilhas de Cabo Verde 1818, Mem Martins, Gráfica Europam, Lda, 1987, p. 87)
The EUROPEAN treatments resorted to bleedings or to chemical preparations used without control, as there were no one knowing how to apply the correct
amounts. Patients died as they used it without the supervision of doctors, surgeons or pharmacists.
“There are also some fevers that are treated through bleedings, “sarjas” and “quintílio” and the inhabitants use it so much because they have great faith in this
medicament that they call it saint “quintílio. And I can certify that many people died because they took it. Whenever they suffer from stomach or head aches
they immediately swallow 12-14-16 or even 20g of it. All this because there is nobody that could knowingly apply the correct treatments for the diseases.”
(Text translated and adapted from João da Silva Feijó, Itinerario filisófico que contem a rellação das ilhas de Cabo Verde disposto pelo methodo epistolar ...
1783, BNL, codex 12984 p. 18 and 18v)