Authors: Romano Greco, Alberto Antoniotto
Medicine and traditional medicine, 1983
Abstract
In Somalia, as in many other African regions, many diseases are treated by burns variously distributed on the skin. In thi study – carried out at mogadishu General Hospital DEG-FER – eleven cases of children with hydrocephalus and therapeutic cephalic burns are considered.
Methods:
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Medical line
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Anamnesisi and C.E.
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Carotidogram
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Ventriculogram
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Neurosurical operation
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Anthropological line
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Further interview with relatives: life story and tales
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Meeting and interview with 3 traditional doctors recording, pictures, partecipating observation of some dab therapies
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Actually in Somalia traditional medicine burns on the scalp are considered to be curative for hydrocephalus. They cause permanet scars on the scalp, but sometimes they can also produce local infections or other complications.
Eleven cases were selected because in all of them the diagnosis was confirmed and all were considered for surgical therapy which consists in shunting the cerebrospinal fluid from the cerebral ventricles to the peritoneum by the insertion of a specific valve system device.
Material kindly provided by the Roma 3 University's Somali Archive