Category: Public Health
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Anaesthesia is a state of controlled and reversible loss of consciousness usually associated with insensitivity to pain, reflex depression, and a variable degree of muscle relaxation. This definition by Famewo C.E. of the University of Ibadan is summed up in the Greek epistemology, ‘a’ meaning without, and ‘aesthesis’ meaning perception. Anaesthesia became a subject of…
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Akinwuntan Abiodun is the Nigerian physical therapist whose doctoral study led to the first-ever use of a high fidelity and interactive driving simulator to train stroke patients to drive again, anywhere in the world. As a student at the University of Lagos, Biodun was gregarious and showed interest in business rather than academics. However, he…
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Oguntola Sapara the medical doctor; one of the pioneers of modern Medicine in Nigeria, is remembered for his brave fight against cultism as practiced by worshippers of the small pox god, Sopona. He is the younger brother to Alexander Sapara Williams who was a prominent Nigerian lawyer. Born Alexander Johnson Williams in June 1861 to…
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Onabamiro Sanya was a biologist and statesman, born 1913 in Ago Iwoye. Before him, the dangerous guinea-worm parasite ravaged the whole of southwest Nigeria. In the 1950s, Onabamiro in the University of Ibadan did the research that formed the basis for development of strategies for the parasites’ eradication. As a pioneer in copepod literature, he…
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Postnatal (puerperal, postpartum) psychiatric disorders are mental conditions that arise in women within the first 42 days after childbirth. Based on the degree of severity, these conditions have been grouped into three; postnatal blues, postnatal depression, and postnatal psychosis, although they overlap to some extent. Blues Majority of women experience this with the symptoms…
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Nathaniel King was the first Nigerian to practice modern medicine in his own country. Nathaniel was born 14 July 1847 in Freetown to a Yoruba Clergyman, Rev.Thomas King, who together with Ajayi Crowther, translated several catechisms and portions of the Bible into Nigerian dialects. Nathaniel King returned with his missionary father to Abeokuta where he…
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Medicine men in ancient Egba society, took Osanyin as their deity and holders of the title bestowed in its cult formed a close association, like they do in Egypt, where advanced practice of medicine, as mentioned in Homer’s Oddysey, is said to have “left the rest of the world behind.” Notwithstanding the historical connection, which ought…