Medical Education. In addition to the traditional long apprenticeships (lasting a minimum of three years) of West African secret guilds or societies of medicine men and women and diviner/priests, medical education became available through the Islamic universities in Timbuktu and Djenne. As early as the eleventh century C.E., the Islamic scientist and philosopher Ibn Sina (also known as Avicenna) wrote his Qanunfi at-tibb (Canon of Medicine) in Arabic. It was destined to become the most famous medical book in the known world. Ibn Sina compiled earlier Greek and other cultures' medical and surgical treatises along with his own medical observations, theories, and discoveries. This work became available in the Islamic universities and their related health centers located at Timbuktu and Djenne.

Doctor-Patient Relationship. Scholars can extrapolate from more-recent information about the interaction of doctor and patient in traditional West African medicine...