Magic Cures and National Fame
El Hi Ani © All Rights Reserved

Before French doctors brought us modern medicine, men and women had ancient cures for every ill in Morocco. It was a time when Seha was not a doctor but a very poor man in a very remote village in the Atlas Mountains. Poverty was not a problem because people knew how to live a simple life then. Yet Seha had a major problem. He had many daughters and the village became too small to find them all the right husbands.

Seha invested his savings in fancy cloths, moved to Marrakech and told everyone he met he was a doctor of great fame. Soon people called upon him to cure every ill. He treated all his patients with great respect but gave them all the same medicine: sugar pills and enema. His basic assumption was that if his treatment does not help, it would not cause any harm either.

One day Seha was called upon to cure an aging sheik. But as soon as Seha prescribed sugar pills and enema, the sheik burst laughing. He remembered the formula for success he gave Seha years before and felt better.