I am put in mind of a lecture I heard while in college from a prominent anthropologist. His formula for being a successful witch doctor:
1. Prescribe ointments and medicines, including those effective in Western medicine if you can.
2. Prescribe detailed rituals and prayers and so on (sleep orientation, abstinence from sex, avoiding certain foods -- that sort of thing.
3. Generally the patient will get better, probably because they would have anyway, maybe because of placebo effects (there is significant documentation that this effect is quite real.
4. If the patient dies anyway, blame the patient for not doing things correctly or for not believing strongly enough.
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