Doepa at dusk: Protective medicines for infants in Soweto, South Africa

Pharmaceutical products have swamped the Third World during the past 30 years. An incredible selection of prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals is currently available and used in Africa, Asia and Latin America. The extensive use of pharmaceutical products by people in the Third World has become an increasing concern for international health organizations because many of the products are ineffective, unnecessary and a waste of resources. Ironically, there is often a lack of the most needed (essential) drugs in these areas. Although no one will deny that pharmaceutical products, when used well, can play a vital role in improving the health of people, it should be emphasized that medicines cannot replace a basic infrastructure to sustain health or an adequate healthy food supply, sanitation or a clean water supply.;Since the 1980s anthropologists report that many biomedical products replace age-old local herbal remedies and that people have reinterpreted pharmaceuticals in terms of local cultural concepts, giving new meaning to products. This is also true for South Africa. An array of over-the-counter products is, for example, specifically aimed at the African infant market. This study focused on two groups of these over-the-counter medicines (Muti Wenyoni and Dutch Medicines). In Soweto we interviewed a random sample of 211 mothers with infants of 12 months or younger on their use of these over-the-counter medicines.;Eighty one percent of mothers used from one to ten different Dutch medicines regularly and 49% used Muti Wenyoni to soothe fretful infants and/or protect them from illness and misfortune. The medicines are administered to babies in one or more of the following ways: orally, added to bath water and/or smeared on the "vulnerable" parts of the body. Doepa is specifically burned at night to calm babies and keep bad spirits away.;The Dutch Medicines, almost 200 years in use in South Africa, represent an excellent example of the process of indigenisation of pharmaceutical products. Originally from Europe these medicines have constantly been reinterpreted by different groups to suit South African conditions and local folk healing traditions. Mufi Wenyoni is an example of how the pharmaceutical industry can exploit local ideas about health and illness to manufacture and sell a product. Several different manufacturers of antacids use variations of the indigenous illness concept inyoni (associated with green diarrhea and a sunken fontanel) as part of their product's name, and some of them specifically refer to the indigenous concept of a specific childhood illness on the medicine covers.