"Salt comes from the north, gold from the south, but the word of God and the treasures of wisdom are only to be found in Timbuktu." 15th-century Malian proverb
Background: Although, medicinal plants have been important for women’s health historically, the knowledge about such use during pregnancy in developing countries is limited. This is the first quantitative, ethnobotanical study on Malian women’s use of and attitudes towards the use of medicinal plants during pregnancy.
The aim of this article is to analyse the influence of commodified cotton production on soil fertility in southern Mali. From the late 1950s and until recently, production of both cash-crop cotton and food crops have increased rapidly in this region, giving it a reputation of being an African ‘success story’.
In Mali the use of traditional medicine is a wide spread phenomenon, not only because of its cultural importance, but also as the majority of people cannot afford the western drugs or medicines. In Mali, the Office du Niger area constitutes the main zone of schistosomiasis transmission where both Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma haematobium are encountered.