A piece of beeswax is placed over the hole in the horn to maintain the pressure for up to half an hour. 4 Lawrence was honouring the resistance of the desert Bedouin to cultural incursion, but in the last four decades even the Bedouin have succumbed to change from outside, and the role of the healer has also changed. In earlier times the healer functioned as a teacher, judge and religious leader, but, with the advent of schools, courts and hospitals, his traditional role has been curtailed. Today, against this trend of acculturation, the healer survives and continues to play an important role in treating difficult ailments for which Western medicine has no cure. This case is characteristic of the management of medical problems in the region.
Western medicine is the treatment of first choice.
This is followed by incantations from the Koran. Failing these methods, the treatments of last resort are the pre-Islamic practices of cupping and cautery. 1,3 Social policy planners around the world have long despaired at indigenous people resorting to traditional healers. There is no evidence for the efficacy of traditional cures, it is argued, and the treatments are at times harmful or disfiguring. But Western medicine fails to understand the role of the traditional healer as a familiar and trusted repository of culture in a time of uncertainty and change.