Antimalarial Effect of Pounded Yam

If I did not know better, I would have thought that village people visited me in my sleep. I woke up that morning with extreme tiredness, fever, headache and chills, which suggested malarial infection. I would not work that day, but I needed to get to my hospital for treatment. I was admitted and recommended to have a few injections.

I observed a few things during my admission. I discovered that I had some “enemies” amongst the nurses. They were in two categories. 

The first category of enemies was excited to know my ability to tolerate pain. The nurse who got access into my vein jokingly told me that it was time for me to be on the receiving end of all the injections I had prescribed to the patients. Two nurses who witnessed her statement agreed. I looked at them with the corner of my eye and chuckled. I disappointed them. I didn’t wince throughout all their attempts to access my vein.

The second category of enemies was more wicked. The nurses in this category saw my admission as relief from my harassment to get them to do their jobs. As a senior doctor in the hospital, I had the responsibility to supervise all the clinical personnel. A few times, I had to be assertive and blunt to get the nurses to do their jobs.

I was admitted in a private ward. As expected, I did not get immediate relief when medications were given to me. About two hours after the admission, I noticed mild improvement.

About six hours into my admission, one of the nurses entered the ward and dropped a food package. She told me that my medical director ordered the food for me. I had a poor appetite that day, but I decided to take a look at the food.

I saw two attractive wraps of pounded yam with a big bowl of vegetable soup containing several "principalities." Immediately, the digestive juices in my mouth and stomach communicated with one another and agreed to return my appetite. I thanked them and did justice to the food. My spirit thanked my MD for his magnanimity.

I settled back to take a nap. I could not. Less than two hours after eating, I felt much better than before. “Ahn! Ahn!!” I mused. “Was it not just now that I felt sick?” I began to evaluate what explained my rapid improvement. The only thing that made sense was the pounded yam.

“Pounded yam?” I queried. I would have gotten better with the orthodox medications alone anyway, but the pounded yam appeared to have hastened my recovery. I thought of a research topic. After many suggestions, I settled for “Antimalarial Effect of Pounded Yam (Dioscorea spp)...” I thought of studying how well Pounded Yam cleared malarial parasites in the blood when compared with popular antimalarial medications like artemether, artesunate, quinine, and others.

I did not tell my medical director about the topic because it would cost the hospital money to carry out the study. The doctor who admitted me saw me later in the evening. He was surprised at my improvement. We agreed that I could go home.

I went home to energize well so that I could take my pound of flesh from all my enemies the following day...

Ademola Orolu

Consultant Family Physician/MD

Nathaniel Health Consulting, Matogbun, Ogun State.