The essay examines, with special reference to smallpox, the perception and interpretation of disease in pre-colonial Dahomey, present-day Republic of Benin. Because disease is seen primarily as a punishment from the gods and not just as a medical problem or a bodily disorder, traditional cult priests play a leading role in making diagnoses and prescribing remedies, mostly based on medicinal pla...

cathedrals. At that 'time the priests were with few exceptions the only people who could read Latin and this precluded others from access to such medical texts as were available. Salerno was the only secular medical centre, but Montpelier was to follow in the next century. Thus any medical treatment which was available was performed by the priests, especially those who were in the monasteries. ...

A cohort study was done on 1396 deaths seen among 4352 Japanese male Zen priests during a follow up period from 1 January 1955 to 31 December 1978. Standardised mortality ratios were computed for major causes of death by comparing with the counterparts of the general Japanese male population. The SMR for all causes of death was 0.82 (p less than 0.001) and the SMR values for cerebrovascular dis...