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22 Introduction
The CBD’s language of promoting compensation for “indigenous
and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles” therefore be-
comes complicated when one considers seriously the multiple identi-
ties of African citizens who participate in the constant renewal of their
cultural practices, often in urban milieus detached from biologically di-
verse environments. A generation of Africanist scholars has shown how
colonial occupations shaped current conceptions of tribal identity and
homelands, often reifying differences where there were few. As recent
civil struggles in Ivory Coast over “ivorité” have reminded us, everyday
people in African contexts continue to seek citizenship as a proxy for
indigenous rights, making the assignment of benefi ts for plant medicine
along communal lines a complicated prospect.
39
In my experience, as I searched for stories from Mali to Madagascar,
I never spoke to local people who desperately wanted to be given money
to continue living a traditional lifestyle in some eco nom ical ly depressed
environment just to sustain wild plants. Individuals sought passage to
the city or abroad, better science education for their children, maternal
health care for their sisters, sturdy jeans for their bodies, or fertilizers for
their fi elds, even as foreign researchers and tourists romanticized the sus-
tainability of their traditional cultures. Or, they performed the channel-
ing of outmoded spirits at theatrical religious ceremonies and pored over
anthropological texts of precolonial histories to better impress visitors
like myself. Given my own research, I hesitate to advocate compensation
for bioprospecting on communal lines in Africa or elsewhere. As African
in de pen dence leaders feared, the deepest confl icts on the continent have
depended on emphasizing tribal differences; witness the struggle for oil
rights during Nigeria’s civil war or the tensions between Hutu and Tutsi
groups in Rwanda and the subsequent genocide.
Benefi t- sharing agreements with indigenous communities are espe-
cially complicated when indigenous scientists seek patents. As this book
shows, African scientists have sought priority for their research through
both publications and patents fi led abroad. Patents for pharmaceuticals
have been controversial in the Global South in recent years, including in
Africa. First, the high cost of essential medicines has led to calls for the
production of generics through compulsory licensing. Second, the percep-
tion that international drug companies steal indigenous knowledge to
make profi table industrial and pharmaceutical chemicals has led to calls
to overturn controversial patents. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to
assume that all patenting efforts in African countries are imposed from
the outside. This book shows that people in African settings have partici-
pated in global patent regimes, for better or for worse.
40
https://t.me/med1917
Introduction 23
On a moral level, the creation of a new drug might benefi t all of
humanity, or at least that proportion of individuals affl icted with the
specifi c ailments treatable. Indeed, drug companies frequently invoke
the argument of common benefi ts to emphasize the necessity of their
high research bud gets or the need to conserve biological diversity. But in
postcolonial Africa, the case for direct benefi t sharing may be diffi cult
to make, given the challenges of national regulation of widely dispersed
healing therapies. This is not to say that African scientists did not exploit
healers and rural communities in their bid to create new pharmaceuti-
cals and further their careers. Nor would the question of benefi t sharing
between ethnic groups and scientifi c organizations necessarily be a
bad thing. However, this book probes the many issues behind ethnicity,
scientifi c identity, and traditional healing that have remained absent in
past discussions of bioprospecting.
OF BITTER MEMORIES AND CONCEALMENT
This book is based on evidence drawn from textual and oral docu-
mentation. Each chapter details the archival and herbarium rec ords to
which I referred during my research, including letters, laboratory notes,
unpublished reports, and slips of paper nestled in dried specimens of
plants sourced in Africa. As more and more scanned rec ords appeared
online, my research incorporated data mining of digitized manuscripts,
patents, government documents, and books and journals, as well as
herbarium sheets. On occasion, the chapters detail day- to- day occur-
rences surrounding a plant as traced through a specifi c set of documents
that were preserved together in the Ghana Public Rec ords and Archives
Administration Department, the National Archives of Madagascar, or the
Archives of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the United Kingdom.
On the whole, the book analyzes scattered evidence not for small- scale
increments of social change but for large- scale patterns of how different
stakeholders have sought to transform medicinal plants from African
countries.
This project also benefi ted from hours of conversations with people
engaged in the search for healing plants (whose names appear in the
List of Persons Consulted in the backmatter). Oral history has been
fundamental for historians of Africa confronting limited sources for the
precolonial and colonial period. The technique is now widely used to
reconstruct recent histories of the postcolonial period as well, where it
interfaces with observational and ethnographic data collection, as well
https://t.me/med1917
24 Introduction
as a more abundant offering of written material. Surprisingly, oral testi-
monies have supplied researchers in the emerging fi eld of pharmaceuti-
cal history with fundamental data, given that corporate archives mostly
remain closed. With digital data fast replacing paper rec ords, oral inves-
tigations will undoubtedly be critical as more historians seek user per-
spectives while mining Web sites, emails, and other electronic media.
41
When I began this project, social historians of Africa typically
addressed changes in the experiences of local communities within na-
tions using colonial archives and oral history. This made their narratives
quite familiar to historians who worked in areas like North American or
Eu ro pe an history, where rich archival evidence exists for the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. But as historian Dipesh Chakrabarty reminds
us, dependence on colonial archives and Eu ro pe an intellectual theory
provided a comforting way for histories of non- Western settings to have
the same theoretical and chronological concerns as Western accounts.
Despite the best efforts at postcolonial scholarship, Chakrabarty states,
“ ‘Eu rope’ remains the sovereign, theoretical subject of all histories, in-
cluding the ones we call ‘Indian,’ ‘Chinese,’ ‘Kenyan,’ and so on.”
42
This research project forced me to acknowledge that colonial archives
did not always contain day- to- day accounts of bioprospecting, nor were
people who recalled plant piracy under colonial occupation still alive. In
addition, I wanted to examine points before and after the colonial mo-
ment to better trace networks of exchange. The project therefore left the
comfort zone of European- centered narratives about colonial theft, aside
from one or two caches of documents I found on pennywort or Strophan-
thus in archival collections. Instead, I depended on published rec ords
and oral accounts to probe the circulation of grains of paradise, as well
as on scientifi c articles to investigate periwinkle, Cryptolepis, and hoodia.
My oral interviews informed the theoretical questions that I address, in-
cluding who was fi rst, if traditional medicine was local, how people trans-
formed plants into pharmaceuticals, and who benefi ted.
In conducting extended oral history interviews, I did not undertake a
randomized study but employed a variety of techniques to identify pos-
sible interviewees, including scientifi c reputation determined through
literature reviews and patent details; recommendation of government
ministries, universities, and business associations; and suggestions from
past interviewees. Overall, I emphasized older individuals who played
leadership roles in their communities and who had a longer view of
the history of science and medicine in their country. Formal interviews
lasted between one and eight hours, with some leading to conversations
that took place over several years. In Ghana, I formally interviewed more
https://t.me/med1917
Introduction 25
than fi fty healers, scientists, and policy makers in Akropong, Larteh,
Mampong, Sekondi- Takoradi, Kumasi, Cape Coast, and Accra during
fi eldwork on bioprospecting conducted intermittently between 1997 and
2005. In South Africa, I formally interviewed a total of fi fteen scientists,
healers, and plant sellers in Cape Town, Pretoria, and Johannesburg in
2007. In Madagascar I formally interviewed twenty plant sellers, farmers,
and scientists in Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) and Antananarivo in 2008.
Although my interview material for Ghana is more culturally nuanced
and extensive, my shorter stays in South Africa and Madagascar coin-
cided with a solidifi cation of my research interests on specifi c plants
and healer- scientist relations, leading to targeted, highly informative
conversations. Often, interviews with the stated individuals merged into
focus- group discussions when family members, customers, students, and
others in the general vicinity joined into the conversation. I gave in for-
mants the option of being recorded anonymously but found that indi-
viduals were generally more than happy to go on the record with their
version of events— and pleased to be remembered as leading scientists
and merchants. In addition, I participated in informal activities with in-
for mants, including meals, conferences, and social events.
The two main groups of interviewees were healers and scientists.
Class alliances affected my experiences with each group, as my college
education placed me in closer proximity to the scientists. Generally, I
found that because scientists in Africa struggled for international rec-
ognition, they carefully differentiated themselves from those in plant
markets and healing shrines, whom they saw as less educated and less so-
phisticated in their methods. Whether I sought healers in Johannesburg,
Antananarivo, or Accra, scientists there warned me that I was likely to
be robbed, duped, or otherwise harassed in the plant markets. Yet, when
I sat down to speak to healers about their diffi culties, they invariably
explained how they had limited education or money, and that scientists
at the nearest universities either stole their cures or sent students to do it
for them. Relief and trust shaped my discussions with healers once they
realized that I did not want to know about any secret cures but rather
hoped to fi nd solutions to past grievances. Although their stories do
not all directly appear in the book, these interactions shaped my under-
standing of how people create and share plant medicines in the present,
and the ways their forebears may have exchanged valuable knowledge in
the past. Nor was oral history my sole entrée into healer cultures. Healers
shared with me their own written rec ords of patients, and a surprising
number of their recipes have been published in postcolonial botanical
surveys, most with full attribution.
https://t.me/med1917
26 Introduction
In contrast to the healers, some scientists were wary of speaking to a
historian interested in observing them in their place of work and asking
them questions about their personal research narrative. Most African
universities abolished anthropology departments after in de pen dence,
making a visit from a social researcher to their laboratories and offi ces
especially ironic.
43
Perhaps more secretive than the famously reticent
healers, the scientists would rarely reveal the names of plants they were
currently researching, even if publications were out and patents fi led.
Thus, we danced around the topic of drug discovery and rights manage-
ment through a refl ection on outdated plants. I often received probing
questions about exactly how much chemistry I had studied in school,
as well as demands to further explain the precise aims of the history of
science. In Madagascar, chemists and botanists at the University of An-
tananarivo and the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research were relieved
to discuss a common weed like rosy periwinkle, or even pennywort. In
South Africa, in contrast, my research on hoodia coincided with media
frenzy over rights to the fruits of national science. Government scientists
there made cautious statements and insisted that they sign forms with
the clause that they could request that I redact any of their statements
from my book. Similarly, I began research on Cryptolepis just as the two
main protagonists in Ghana were close to death, in a storm of contro-
versy over their physical and intellectual property. Tape recorders, then
digital recorders, and then video recorders were reluctantly turned off
during the juiciest parts of conversations. After one scientist wept pro-
fusely during a four- hour interview about his role as an intermediary
exporting bundles of dried plants between foreign researchers and local
healers, I realized that I needed to add a clause to my preliminary re-
marks and human- subject- research waiver forms that “refl ecting on the
past may make you sad.”
My experience conducting oral history interviews speaks to the mal-
leability of identity and the relativity of race and ethnicity. Although
many historians may not spend much time considering how their gen-
der and appearance affect the interview per for mance, my “positional-
ity” had an impact on the course of my research, and I would be remiss
not to mention my own status as a multiethnic historian of science. In
Ghana, sometimes it was advantageous to call on the Ewe (my sister is
called Asiwome, a gift from God) and Akan (I am named for my late
grandmother Agyepoma) ancestry of my father. Once, I was allowed to
interview a healer only when his sister recognized me from when I had
read a tribute in Twi at the funeral of my grandmother’s best friend (she
had come from their town). I understood more clearly over the course
https://t.me/med1917
Introduction 27
of my research that my father’s family was Guan, a fi rst- people group
found throughout Ghana that had taken up the Twi language during
Akan occupations. Later, I referenced the Ga last name of my husband
when I found myself among Ga- speaking farmers, who had migrated
fi fty years before from the coast to a forest enclave near the Ivory Coast
border and were reluctant to speak to an outsider about their experiences
with a valuable plant. Or, I might explain his mother was Ewe despite
her Akyem last name. Or, when I needed to present further affi nity to
Eu rope and justify my interest in the French language, it might be help-
ful to explain that my husband grew up on the French- German border.
In other contexts, my dual position as a person of Eu ro pe an descent
affected my research. To test my character, one spiritual herbalist, a
Hausa- speaker from Northern Ghana, placed several small objects under
an overturned calabash, then asked me to balance on top of the rounded
surface on one foot. As I stood precariously over the oracle, he said he
could not tell whether I was a Ghanaian or an outsider, but he had a
good research experience with a Scandinavian anthropologist. Was this
the moment to explain my mother’s family hailed from Norway? In
South Africa, I quickly realized that I was classed as “colored” based on
my appearance. Many of those interviewed assumed I spoke Afrikaans,
and during a trip to Cape Town some assumed I was part of the Cape
Malay community. In Madagascar, I could pass as the sister of the fi ancée
of my research coordinator. When we entered government offi ces to fi nd
statistics or people, often we were smoothly escorted through, until my
American- accented French and non ex is tent Malagasy showed my iden-
tity as an outsider. But then, Barack Obama had been elected president
of the United States a week before my arrival in Madagascar. Obama,
Abena, they sound similar, I heard on numerous occasions. Obama was
featured in newspaper articles there about the rise of those of mixed
ancestry. “Your father is from Ghana, your mother from America, c’est
manifi que!” “You are like me, my mother is Chinese, my father Mala-
gasy.” Or “My grandfather is Kenyan and her grandmother Indian. We
are all mixed!”
Listening closely to the complex recollections of healers, scientists,
and community members led me to the stories of the six plants in this
book. Multivocal narratives suggest how many people could be fi rst to
create herbal innovations. The recipes of healers across borders show
how herbal knowledge transcends locality. The sagas of scientists hop-
ing to appropriate prior plant recipes reveal the diffi culties of record-
ing, experimenting, explaining, producing, and harvesting plants for
new pharmaceuticals. And the stories of who benefi ts from plant- based
https://t.me/med1917
28 Introduction
pharmaceuticals manufactured for foreign markets indicate the diffi cul-
ties of assigning credit and rewards in a global system of herbal medical
exchange.
Let us begin with the fairly well- known account of Madagascar’s peri-
winkle at the hands of the drug fi rm Eli Lilly. From markets and labora-
tories in the capital city, to ports and plantations on the southern coast,
knowledge of plants on this island nation spread around the world. The
wide distribution of periwinkle and the simultaneous creation of herbal
remedies and laboratory investigations make it diffi cult to assign prior-
ity in drug discovery. Yet, Lilly charted a pathway to prosperity that
many African countries have sought to emulate, at the same time that
others condemned the company’s profi ts. The issue of who should pros-
per when plants become pharmaceuticals remains an open question in
Madagascar, with implications for the future of medicine.
https://t.me/med1917
https://t.me/med1917
Figure 1.1 Periwinkle and pennywort for sale at Analakely Market, Madagascar. (Photo by author.)
https://t.me/med1917
31
Manan- tsira ka mahay mahandro ny vazaha. The foreigners have salt, there-
fore they know how to cook.
—Malagasy proverb, in Ralibera, Vazaha et Malgaches en Dialogue
In 1965, the U.S. Patent Offi ce awarded the chemist Gordon Svoboda
two valuable patents for work he had conducted on behalf of the drug
company Eli Lilly. The patents granted Svoboda, and therefore Lilly,
exclusive rights to unique pro cesses to extract chemicals from the plant
Vinca rosea (now called Catharanthus roseus). Lilly went on to market the
chemicals as drugs to treat two types of cancer, leukemia and Hodg-
kin’s lymphoma. By the late 1980s, annual profi ts from the medications,
marketed as Oncovin and Velban, were reportedly between US$90 and
US$400 million.
1
The plant, commonly known as “rosy periwinkle” (hereafter referred
to simply as “periwinkle”), was originally from Madagascar. For two
de cades, periwinkle has been at the symbolic center of debates over
the distribution of rewards from plant- based pharmaceuticals. Activists
have argued that Lilly “owed” the citizens of Madagascar (the Malagasy)
for its profi ts, given that the plant is widely used in herbal medicine
there.
2
Not surprisingly, scientists behind the research at Lilly’s labora-
tories in Indianapolis disagreed. Svoboda’s collaborator Irving Johnson
explained, “In this case I do not believe there is a compelling reason to
CHAPTER 1
Take Madagascar Periwinkle for Leukemia
and Pennywort for Leprosy
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