Let me be frank: many plant medicines can over-run cholera, as many naturopaths say, but, in my view, not when the disease has thrown up medical emergencies. So, I write only about a cholera that is still a toothless bull dog, however wild its presentation may appear to be. Last week, I pulled my guards, just in case…! That was when my son kept going to the small room, as did a young woman often around us and my system began to quiver after theirs. Carefully, I watched the trend for two days to be sure it was plain diarrhoea, took seven capsules of activated charcoal on the third, to let detoxification take its course, and, on the fourth, terminated the bowel riot by eating with meal and on empty stomach, a bowl of scent leaves. These are two of several recipes which should easily terminate spasmodic muscle motions in the stomach and intestines caused by a bacterium in the disease of CHOLERA. I will mention other helpful remedies in due course.
S.O. KOLADE
It was in the 1967 and 1968 Health Science classes of Mr. S.O. Kolade at Oliver Baptist High School, Oyo, that I first learned about Cholera. It was one of the diseases the Western African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) compelled students of Health Science to learn. That was because the Africans education was tied to health experiences of the European. Cholera was not prevalent in Nigeria then, although our forefathers had encountered and tamed it with herbs. Yoruba traditional medicine men and women call it Aa run ONI IGBA MEJI (disease of two calabashes). This was a most graphic or vivid description of a presentation of simultaneous vomiting and loose defecation in which one calabash was placed before tte mouth to catch the vomit and another took the anal discharges.
Among Yorubas, the Ijebus kept accurate accounts of the healing herbs of their forebears. These accounts were kept in what they called the ACCOUNT BOOK or IWE ACCOUNT. It was meticulously kept away from persons unauthorised to see it. Upon the owner’s death, it was the prized inheritance his children searched for. My paternal grandfather, IKURIMISA, was a renowned herbalist well known in the Palace of the AWUJALE OF IJEBULAND of his days. When he passed, one of his cousins was said to have hijacked, if not stolen, his account book. In my unrelenting search for the “accounts” of the healing herbs of Yoruba people, I came across what seemed to me to be the most well-kept records. It was in a book form published in the name of Pa ODUNMOSU. I found it to be a book not to be kept carelessly in the book shelf because it had several recipes for inimical preparations as well. The book showed me the Yorubas had reliable medical knowledge. The description of Cholera was apt (Aa run Oni Igba Meji), more than F. DANIEL could describe for us in Kolade’s Health Science students in his book TROPICAL HYGIENE FOR SCHOOLS. I kept Pa Odumusu’s book so thoroughly that I forgot where I kept it. All I remember about Cholera from the book now is that EHINBISISOWO or EHIN OLUBE, that is CHANCA PIEDRA ( Phyllanthus nuriri) was among the recipes.
IGBOBI COLLEGE
It was in the “A” Level or Higher School Certificate (HSC) history class of an English woman, Mrs. Odunsi at Igbobi College in 1969 that I came to square terms with Cholera. She taught modern European History in which British history was etched. It was largely a history of empire building and of war which pitched so-called democratic governments of Britain, France, and Germany against the totalitarian regimes of Russia. One of their battlefield encounters which had something to do with Cholera and brought humanitarian nurse FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE to limelight was the CRIMEAN WAR.
The war was fought over Christian and Islamic differences in respect of access to religious shrines and over Russian expansionism. An estimated one million British soldiers were killed in unhygienic condition which promoted the flourish of Cholera, Dysentery, Typhoid and Fever. In addition, exposure to cold exerted its toll. So frightening were the pictures of dead and dying painted by Mrs. Odunsi that I then understood the inclusion of Cholera in an O’level Health Science syllabus. Till this day, I have not ceased to ascribe divine grace to why Cholera has not wiped out more than half of Nigeria’s population, and wonder as well if we are not pushing our luck too far. In a moment, I will paint a small picture which should drive these points home.
ABULE IJESHA
This is a settlement of Ijesha people who migrated from the Yoruba hinterland in today’s Osun State. The settlement lies between the Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH) and Myoung Army Barracks near Igbobi College. It is a swamp in which no human dwelling should have been permitted. The water table was so high in the 1950s when I grew up there as a child that well water was flows within only 10 feet from the top soil. The houses were packed so close on the streets that two cars may not be driven abreast without side contact. Open earth drainage dug with hoes or cutlasses were everywhere. They were smelly and filled with mosquitoes. Children died everyday from malaria fever and its complications such as convulsions and seizures or from the poisoning by traditional medicine against them which children were given in almost every home at the weekend. The kingpin of these medicines was cow’s urine kept over the fire place in the kitchen to ferment. Whenever any child convulsed, even in the dead of the night, the women rushed into the streets wailing for help and there was a flood of cow’s urine targeted at the dying child and other children in the house. If the sick child died or survived, the helping women and men turned to their own homes to give their own children cow’s urine as a prophylactic. Which children often heard them saying: Ti a ba n wo alaisan, a a wo ara eni (where we look after the sick, we look after ourselves!)
My uncle colonised Odunukan Street. I went to Abule-Ijesha to spend school holiday with my grandmother from 1959 when I was nine. She lived at 12 Odunukan, her younger brother, Pa A.T. Olunaike (a.ka. Baba Alajo Shomolu), at No.10, Pa Oshidipe, their cousin at No. 8, and Pa Oshifeko, another cousin, at No. 6. Whenever a child died, the adult men of Abule-Ijesha organised a group of men whose duty was to dispose the body on the refuse dung which had formed around the the Pedro Stream at the borderline of mid-line Shomolu and low-line Shomolu. I still do not know where this stream comes from. It flows through Bajulaye through lower Shomolu into the Gbagada Canal. At night, Abule-Ijesha men went to deposit these bodies which would have been abused in diverse ways to warn the souls never to return to their parents as new babies. There was a strong conviction in reincarnation. The bottom or legs of the deceased child may be burned in fire. The body may be lacerated in several places with oven hot knife, the cuts filled with fresh ground pepper. The body may be stone dead. The ritualist believe, nevertheless, that if the soul had not separated from the body as a baby in the womb from the mother when the umbilical cord is severed, the silver cord, which connects the body and soul may, if still active, transmit to the soul what happened to the discarded body. In truth,it would appear these children returned, for those marks often appeared in exact locations on the bodies of newborns later.
Once the group of men deposited the corpses, they left. Wild pigs scavenging the dump site for food ate the corpses, including the heads. Whenever it rained, the dump site emptied all these rubbish on the road, and we waded through them to our destinations. After I listened to Mrs Odunsi in 1969, I became afraid and wore rain boots to work at the Daily Times offices on 3, 5, 7, Kakawa Street on Lagos Island. What if Cholera struck here, how many people would survive it, I always wondered.Many houses in Shomolu had no presentable latrines. In many cases, there may be only one bucket latrine for a whole building, such as was the case with my uncle’s which was inhabited by 25 families, many of them with children. In the toilet, some persons would pause their breath for about a minute just to expel a pellet or two, clean up and then rush out.
Let us return to Abule-Ijesha. Apologies if you are at the dinning table. In those days, the last room in a dewlling was reserved for the bucket laterine. The users climb a woody platform and squatted over a shit hole through which their stool dropped into the bucket below. Every week, shit men brought their trucks to take away the buckets and to replace them. They passed through the corridors. If any child expressed misgivings, the shit men swirled the buckets on their head with their brooms and sprinkled the shits on the broom on such children.
I do not think many neighbourhoods in Lagos here fare any better today. Many are still flooded with lots of rubbish and germs in the water. For example, many homeless persons still spend the night on the foot bridges at Oshodi in Lagos. At night, they evacuate their bowels in and around the rail tracks. I guess this goes on wherever they are pedestrian bridges across the tracks.Whenever it rains, these places are flooded and people wade through the floods. Some persons used saline water to wash their feet when they arrive home. Whether this is of any value only time will tell.
“I cannot forget another potential cholera cesspool in Lagos. It’s right next to CHARLY-Boy bus stop on the way to Gbagada, in the Oshodi-Gbagada axis of the Apapa-Oworoshoki expressway. From the bus stop, it’s a shortcut to Shomolu over a canal with a wooden bridge. Motorcycle taxis ferry passengers across. Before the canal is a busy and densely populated community of churches, mechanic workshops, dwellings, restaurants, and schools constructed with wood. It slopes into the canal and floods the community during downpours. I mistakenly took this route on one such day. Cars in the workshops were submerged up to their bonnets. Only the rails of the wooden bridge showed us where to pass. I pulled off my bottom dress and boxer at my sister’s, bathed with weak Izal water, washed the garments in thick Izal water, and dried them with her electric iron. That was my last trip to Shomolu through Charley-Boy.”
GRACE EDET
Her story as a victim of Cholera touches me whenever her daughter , Udeme Edet James, and I discuss it. Mrs Edet, mother of Nine and about 38 when she passed, was a dutiful wife and mother. She was from Ikot Ekwere Itam, near Uyo. On her last day on earth,April 12, 1997, she made breakfast for her children and, after they left for school, made lunch which she kept for them as usual. Then, she went to her farm not too far from her husband’s who had gone to his before her. Suddenly, she began to vomit and to run loose bowels. She was weak. A neighbour who passed by told her to go home and went on to her own farm.Mrs Edet could not walk, nor could she call out to her husband. She probably thought her favourite daughter, UDEME(My share from God) would come to her as she often did after school.On that day, politicians came to the village for campaign. Fascinated by the dancing and music, Udeme followed them around. Then, the woman who saw a sick Mrs Grace in the farm sighted and told Udeme,eight or nine, “You are here playing, your mummy is dying in the farm” Help was rushed to Mrs James on the farm. She was brought immediately to her family compound which was the location of a hospital where she underwent appendicitis surgery years earlier. Cholera was ravaging the village. Victims were brought in. However, the doctor declined to see Mrs James when she was brought in between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. May be because the James family could not pay. By 9.p.m , Mrs Edet was gone! Udeme said she was dehydrated, her eyes sunken. Many villagers within the village and next neighbouring village died that year.
VIBRIO CHOLERAE
That is the name (plural)of the bacterium which causes CHOLERA. It takes them between one and five days to incubate in the body before they begin to forment trouble..In susceptible persons, VIBRIO CHOLERAE toxins create wild muscle movement in the stomach and intestine known as SPASMS. These cause watery diarrhoea often called RICE WATER STOOL . Vomiting may cause severe dry mouth. Urine output may be decrease and urine may almost turn black. Electrolytes, especially Sodium and Potassium are lost. So are glucose, magnesium and calcium and other minerals. These events may be so rapid and intense that death may quickly fellow. This is why it is best to seek urgent medical attention before resorting to herbal treatments. However, this is not to say herbal intervention at first instance is unnecessary as first aid or curative therapy where orthodox medical attention is distant or unavailable.
Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) salt are available in many pharmacies. Some persons do not like the state. Personally, I keep one or two packs of SEA SALT and a bottle or two of pure natural honey at home for use at the first notice of diarrhoea or vomiting or both. Sea salt has about more than 40 biochemical substances which are not present in Table salt and, so, is a plus. Honey is just as rich in nutrients.
CHOLERA SPREAD
The germs are spread through contaminated food, water and drinks and through contact in diverse ways with vector excrement. The opportunities for spreading it are too many in Nigeria. Several water sources are contaminated. Bottled and sachet water may be infected from source. Food is not protected in food markets. Flies which may have perched on a VIBRIO CHOLERAE source may perch on raw beef in the beef hawker’s tray or table in the market. Such flies may also feast on raw fish. Cooks in the kitchens of well rated restaurants while cooking, mouths uncovered, may release infected sputum into food. What about the situation in home kitchens? Persons who patronise roadside roast plantain and maize sellers may be at risk as well. Potential customers touch these and similar foodstuffs to seize them up for their money cash worth. What about fruits and droplet sputum from the mouths of some persons which fall on the lips or face of others during conversions?
USEFUL HERBS
In the treatment and cure of CHOLERA with herbs,the following therapy goals or objectives,and even more, may be followed. In each one will be found several useful herbs.
• Rehydration and rebalancing of the electrolytes system.
• Elimination of VIBRIO CHOLERAE.
• Elimination of the toxins of germ which cause spasmodic and cathartic motions in muscles of the throat, stomach and the gastro-intestinal ((GI) tract
• Healing of inflammed tissues
• Healing of injured to tissues
• Strengthening of the immune system
VIBRIO CHOLERAE
Eliminating it is simple, after rehydration and balancing of electrolytes or simultaneously accomplishing these. One of the best antibiotics in nature is GOLDEN SEAL ROOT. It coats inner lining of hollow organs, thus preventing germs adherence to them. Without adherence, vibrio cholerae is useless. It becomes mince meat for the immune system.. PAPAIN, a digestive enzyme in pawpaw leaves, seeds, fruit and sap of the unripe fruit and the stem, digests all exogenous (foreign) proteins. This germ is made of exogenous proteins. In several studies, PAPAIN has demonstrated doubless capacity for destroying VIBRIO CHOLERAE. They are several proprietary blends of plants medicines which do this as well. These may include PARA CLEANSE, PARASHIELD, DIATOM and ACTIVATED CHARCOAL
Diatom and ACTIVATED charcoal attracts and capture and encase the germs for destruction and double, also, as a toxins mop. In Akwa Ibom State , the unpurified form of Diatom called NZU, a clay form, is used. The Yorubas soak cassava flakes in room temperature water until it becomes solid . It is called FESELU, something you can hit with a fist punch and it would not “scatter”. It is believed to be too hard for the spasms to dismember and make liquefy.
REHYDRATION: that’s important as re-balancing of electrolytes. I spoke of them earlier. It has been better achieved in emergency cases at an hospital.Anti-inflamatories as Ginger, Tumeric and Curcumin are important for convalence. I like Curcumin 2000x and Curcurite. A new proprietary blend called Rejuvenating Drink has joined the league. It is designed, it is said, to stimulate production of new stem cells which replace damaged cells. Then there is the soothing NIKOM OIL and the powerful healer, ZINC.
