Soc Sci Med. 1982 ; 16(21): 1843-9.

New legal rules for an old art of healing: the case of Zairian Healers' Association.

Bibeau G.

Legitimacy of traditional medical practice could be recognized by modern legal codes in Africa through quite simple procedures. However, legal recognition of traditional medicine implies also the examination of more fundamental aspects of "laws regarding the art of healing': for example, what legal status can be given to cultural categories such as witchcraft, spirits and magic? To ritual therapeutics used concurrently with herbal remedies? To diagnostic procedures such as divination? This paper insists on the fact that both dimensions in traditional medicine, natural and meta-natural, must be assumed within the official legal framework. Western-oriented codes of law, such as they generally exist in African States, are limited in their capability to integrate the African medical conceptions. This limitation is discussed in this text.