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The partial or complete removal of the uvula is a procedure considered almost obsolete by cosmopolitan physicians. Antibiotic therapy is now accepted as the treatment of choice for most enlarged, infected uvulae, and modern medical evaluation is considered essential to rule out the possibility of life‐threatening conditions such as tuberculosis or cancer as the underlying cause of symptoms. However, traditional African practitioners continue to perform uvulectomies at the request of their patients and to claim safe alleviation of symptoms, despite severe complications noted by physicians. I postulate that uvulectomy, a procedure recognized by Africans to be therapeutic rather than religious, may have been beneficial when modern health services were unavailable and may have been the treatment of choice in pre‐antibiotic days.

Traditional medicine has been recommended as an adjunct to cosmopolitan medicine, although for a variety of reasons its efficacy is difficult to evaluate. Kenyan traditional medical practitioners consider the treatment of barrenness to be a field in which they have special expertise, a belief shared by their clients. Data collected while observing 48 healers indicate that, regardless of technique and despite a high incidence of physical impediments to conception, they are successful in treating approximately one‐third of their patients. This is similar to rates reported in other countries without biomedical therapy but under conditions of stress reduction. Recent studies are beginning to confirm the effects of stress on human physiology and to suggest that culturally appropriate traditional therapeutic modalities may serve to reduce it.

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