"Jazz" and Medicine!
Since i was a child, i have been regaled with stories about the supernatural by cousins who were supposed to be babysitting us (my sister and cousins) but i can tell you they scared us out of our wits by feeding us stories about horrible beings or people who changed their shapes to achieve some diabolical purpose! One story that will remain with me for life amongst their horrible tales is one which im sure most kids who grew up in Naija will have heard in its original form or a variant.
A certain young girl who had been warned by her mom never to accept lifts did so on a dark night and was picked up by a stranger in a mercedes benz. She sat at the back and was able to view his teeth through the rearview mirror. She almost died of fright when she saw he had pins instead of teeth in his gums. She hurriedly found an excuse to get down and she did but stupidly took another lift from the next car that came by. This time she sat in front and began to regale the man with the story of her near miss with the man with pins for teeth, the man patiently listened to her and when she began to describe the pins turned to her and said 'Is it like this?' revealing a perfect set of pin teeth! The story ended with the girl fainting.
You can imagine the effect oflistening to such stories before bedtime, what do you think your dreams would be like? Probably filled with Pin toothed monsters!
Anyway the title of this post is Jazz and medicine. Growing up in a society saturated with tales of the supernatural, its not suprising to find that every part of our lives is associated in some way with Jazz including medicine. (Now for the clueless, that is those who grew up the janded way, living in sterile hubs, going abroad for holidays instead of the village and who were probably read stories from Enid Blyton or some other European author, jazz stands for fetish inclinations or the occult.)
In medicine my experience shows that nearly everyone believes that their ailment is connected in someway to powers that belong to a dark kingdom and any worsening of their symptoms is a sign that the powers gain the upper hand. Many innocuous happenings are also given a meaning which if the fear of the occult had not predominated would have been explained away rationally.
For example at Ogbomoso where i worked the local rumour mills had it that a strange bird flew over the compound and cried whenever someone died. It was very amusing to note that oiling the wheels of the trolley that wheeled the deceased from the wards to the morgue would have eliminated the mysterious bird that cried when someone died. It was the noisy wheels of the trolley that produced the myth of the wailing bird!
Other not so easily explainable 'myths' have to do with the patients themselves. Listening in on the hospitals in-house mini communication systems provides a lot of jist. 'Certain visitors were to be discouraged, if not the nurses would find themselves with the task of bundling another body to the morgue instead of serving medications and looking forward to an early discharge,' 'Only children especially only sons were the most likely target of the evil ones'.etc.
I remember being told a story by a former nurse now a lawyer about one night she spent as a student midwife in a maternity ward. The labor had gone well up to the point of delivery and now the woman was fully dilated she could not just bring the child forth. The most senior midwife apparently rubbed her hands together muttering some words under her breath and tapped the womans belly. Out popped the baby to the amazement of those assisting. Small jazz had met its match, bigger jazz had conquered!
Do i believe these tales? Thats the big question. What i do know is that i'd rather face the obvious problems, malaria caused by a mosquito filled with the parasite biting an individual than delving into the background to find the human turned witch sucking the poor childs blood and causing anaemia!
A certain young girl who had been warned by her mom never to accept lifts did so on a dark night and was picked up by a stranger in a mercedes benz. She sat at the back and was able to view his teeth through the rearview mirror. She almost died of fright when she saw he had pins instead of teeth in his gums. She hurriedly found an excuse to get down and she did but stupidly took another lift from the next car that came by. This time she sat in front and began to regale the man with the story of her near miss with the man with pins for teeth, the man patiently listened to her and when she began to describe the pins turned to her and said 'Is it like this?' revealing a perfect set of pin teeth! The story ended with the girl fainting.
You can imagine the effect oflistening to such stories before bedtime, what do you think your dreams would be like? Probably filled with Pin toothed monsters!
Anyway the title of this post is Jazz and medicine. Growing up in a society saturated with tales of the supernatural, its not suprising to find that every part of our lives is associated in some way with Jazz including medicine. (Now for the clueless, that is those who grew up the janded way, living in sterile hubs, going abroad for holidays instead of the village and who were probably read stories from Enid Blyton or some other European author, jazz stands for fetish inclinations or the occult.)
In medicine my experience shows that nearly everyone believes that their ailment is connected in someway to powers that belong to a dark kingdom and any worsening of their symptoms is a sign that the powers gain the upper hand. Many innocuous happenings are also given a meaning which if the fear of the occult had not predominated would have been explained away rationally.
For example at Ogbomoso where i worked the local rumour mills had it that a strange bird flew over the compound and cried whenever someone died. It was very amusing to note that oiling the wheels of the trolley that wheeled the deceased from the wards to the morgue would have eliminated the mysterious bird that cried when someone died. It was the noisy wheels of the trolley that produced the myth of the wailing bird!
Other not so easily explainable 'myths' have to do with the patients themselves. Listening in on the hospitals in-house mini communication systems provides a lot of jist. 'Certain visitors were to be discouraged, if not the nurses would find themselves with the task of bundling another body to the morgue instead of serving medications and looking forward to an early discharge,' 'Only children especially only sons were the most likely target of the evil ones'.etc.
I remember being told a story by a former nurse now a lawyer about one night she spent as a student midwife in a maternity ward. The labor had gone well up to the point of delivery and now the woman was fully dilated she could not just bring the child forth. The most senior midwife apparently rubbed her hands together muttering some words under her breath and tapped the womans belly. Out popped the baby to the amazement of those assisting. Small jazz had met its match, bigger jazz had conquered!
Do i believe these tales? Thats the big question. What i do know is that i'd rather face the obvious problems, malaria caused by a mosquito filled with the parasite biting an individual than delving into the background to find the human turned witch sucking the poor childs blood and causing anaemia!
Jazz and the yoruba man.
ReplyDeleteused to hear stories from my brother who stayed a while in Ogbomosho about the medicine man who would put up signs saying "tosibi"
meaning "please urinate here". My brother said anyone who tried it would not be able to stop urinating until all the fluids were gone from his body and he died. Also storied about a famous thief back then who could disappear into thin air and the police never caught him.
i wonder what physical explanation there is for that type of thing.