Indigenous people in the Great Lakes region of Africa, including Rwanda and Uganda, performed caesarean sections which in one account by Robert William Felkin from 1879 resulted in the survival of both mother and child. Banana wine was used, although the site of the incision was then also washed with water and, post operation, covered with a paste made by chewing two different roots. From the well-developed nature of the medical procedures employed he concluded that these procedures had been employed for some time. James Barry was the first European doctor to carry out a successful caesarean in Africa, while posted to Cape Town between 1817 and 1828.
Indigenous people in the Great Lakes region of Africa, including Rwanda and Uganda, performed caesarean sections which in one account by Robert William Felkin from 1879 resulted in the survival of both mother and child. Banana wine was used, although the site of the incision was then also washed with water and, post operation, covered with a paste made by chewing two different roots. From the well-developed nature of the medical procedures employed he concluded that these procedures had been employed for some time. James Barry was the first European doctor to carry out a successful caesarean in Africa, while posted to Cape Town between 1817 and 1828.