Les mentalités et les préjugés en matière de santé physique et psychique au Maghreb

Modern medicine is an achievement of French colonialism in the Maghreb (the French-speaking North Africa). Traditional medicine, caring for physical as mental illnesses, in a continuum of prescientific logic, existed even before the arrival of the French systems. The merging of the two systems was very rapid, by contamination, causing different kinds of reactions, but frequently a reject, both in one system as in the other. In this paper we analyze the dimensions and persistence of the respective aspects of traditional and modern medical practice in the Maghreb.