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Kogi Boy
I had been treating this young boy from the hut next door for a couple of days. He had a nasty cough. I was giving extra special treatment, with my vitamins and my own herbal medicines plus the homeopathics. It was awful every night, to listen to his dry hacking coughs until he finally fell asleep. My medicines weren't touching him. I spoke with Mama, who said he suspected TB. I knew TB was well out of my range of treatment at the time. I had only brought a limited range of medicines and I felt frustrated and helpless. The child had a kind of glazed-over doomed look in his eyes, which is hard to describe.
The hospital was a couple of day’s walk from the village, and treatment for TB can be up to 6 months of hospitalisation. Besides that, the Indians preferred to avoid the Western medicine, as it was not compatible with their culture in more ways than one.
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