808 pandemics and epidemics: Africa were wrongly suspected of having caused it and the crowds of penitents marching throughout Europe who preached that the pestilence was in part a punishment for the corruption of the church This is only one of many indications that a secular society was well on the way to being established in medieval Europe in a way that was not happening in much of the rest of the world Contagion is a confusing term used in the discussion of disease during the Middle Ages This is because, like many old words, it has in modern times been given a new meaning to describe a new discovery that was not known in the Middle Ages Contagion is a Latin word that literally means simply “touching together.” Today it denotes the transfer of the microorganisms (bacteria and viruses) that cause disease when two people touch or come into close contact with each other But in the Middle Ages the existence of microorganisms was never suspected, still less their role in spreading disease What medieval people meant by “contagion” is well described in a passage in the Christian New Testament In one story (Luke 8:43–48) a sick woman follows Jesus in a crowd and touches the hem of his garment She is immediately healed by the contact Jesus is aware that he has been touched, not from the ordinary sensation of being jostled but because he feels some mysterious power issue forth from himself When a medieval Christian or Islamic writer talks about contagion with respect to the Black Death, this is what he means: that the disease consists of a magical potency that contaminates a victim and which can be transmitted to another person by touching the victim or by touching something that a victim has touched, such as his clothing Africa by Almaz Zewde African traditional medicine and medical practices go back many thousands of years and were generally considered the only healing resource until about 80 years ago, when relatively stable contact with the West brought some modern medical practices to Africa As the oldest continent on earth, of vast size and diversity, Africa has many varieties of traditional medical practices Knowledge of traditional medical practices has primarily been transmitted orally, although a few texts written in Arabic and Ethiopian have been found Throughout Africa, traditional medical practices separate physical illnesses and mental illnesses The typical treatment scheme for physical diseases is herbal medicine, which includes not only herbs but also metal and animal derivatives Mental illness is treated through the power of conjured spirits Some researchers observe that in virtually all of sub-Saharan Africa diseases are categorized by their causes, either natural or supernatural Supernatural causes are chiefly the result of human malevolence that angers the spirits Sorcerers, spiritual healers, and others with exceptional insight into people’s nonphysical states are called on to reverse or undo the afflictions Many of the treatments are similar to hypnosis and modern forms of psychiatric treatment Traditional healers of physical or natural diseases are herbalists and bonesetters, among others Unlike faith healers, sorcerers, and spiritualists, herbalists apply specific traditional drug mixes targeting the diagnosed physical illness In medieval Africa diseases such as smallpox, measles, malaria, and typhoid sometimes reached epidemic proportions All were treated by practitioners of traditional medicine An important consideration in discussing medieval African epidemics and their treatment is that unlike Europe, where local governments and municipalities were beginning to institutionalize, license, and regulate medical practice, medieval Africa made few changes in medical thinking and practice from earlier forms The foundations for recording, experimenting with, and discovering improved ways of disease treatment and management that were in place in Europe by the Middle Ages did not exist in medieval Africa African traditional medical practice remained fragmented and in the hands of traditional practitioners dependent on oral tradition to transmit medical knowledge and skill During the medieval era the slave trade that disorganized Africa and threw its society into chaos also disrupted any opportunity for African traditional medicine to better manage epidemic diseases in an increasingly dense population A disease is considered an epidemic when it affects populations within a very large geographic area Three factors account for the occurrence of an epidemic disease: an agent, a host, and the environment An agent like a virus or a bacterium causes the disease; hosts are the people susceptible to the agent; and the environment can include unhygienic, dark and damp, or congested conditions that facilitate a host’s exposure to the agent Thus it takes the interaction among host, agent, and environment for an epidemic to spread fast and far An epidemic can spread through the air, as in tuberculosis spread by infected persons sneezing and coughing into the air shared by others Disease can also spread through contaminated water or food, as is the case with typhoid Vectors like mosquitoes and lice are known to cause epidemic diseases like malaria, river blindness, and typhus in Africa Typhus is a communicable disease that often turns into an epidemic It causes sever fever and nervous disorder Epidemic diseases like smallpox and measles are transmitted by direct human contact with infected people or objects like blankets or eating utensils