When 63-year-old Ben Buyondo started having difficulty to pass urine, he was sure the only solution would be an operation as he had been told at Mulago hospital. This scared him. "One of my colleagues was down with so much pain as a result from a similar operation. He had been moving around with a catheter for some time," explains Buyondo.

That was about eight months ago before Buyondo had known about Dr. David Ssali. Today, he does not in the least look frightened or sickly and has never had a catheter inserted in his urethra as is always the case with patients with this problem.

While doctors recommend surgery to cure an enlarged prostate gland that hinders urination among elderly men, Dr. Ssali only recommends a clove of garlic to cure the complication.

Buyondo never went for the operation and doesn't complain about passing urine anymore. "I expressed my fears about facing the surgical knife to Dr. Ssali and he said I was not supposed to be operated upon," he says.

Ssali instead recommended herbal medicine to clear Buyondo's colon (large intestine) then ordered him to sleep with a clove of garlic inserted into the anus everyday. "After about 40 days, the problem was gone. I never had to go for the operation," beams Buyondo.

Despite his age, Buyondo rides a motorbike everyday from Nakulabye to Kampala where he works. He appears healthy, strong and happy.

"The youth marvel at my energy. I have learnt from the doctor to prevent disease and ill health by eating healthy and keeping my body clean," he says.

75-year-old Tomasi Buwule's problem however seemed so complicated that his family threw a party for him when he got healed. A huge swelling that appeared like a second head had developed from a small seemingly harmless bulge on his right shoulder.

The doctors he had consulted said it could not be tampered with least it became cancerous. "Although it was painless, it bothered me because it was deforming me. It had grown to weigh 2 1/2 kilogrammes thus weighing me down on one side. It started developing when I was 60-years-old," Buwule says.

After a week of consultation with Dr. Ssali, Buwule was free. The first time he went to see Dr. Ssali in May this year; he was injected with herbal medicine that the doctor explains was to stop blood from flowing to the swelling. On Friday that same week, the swelling was cut off in a three hour operation where Buwule did not even lose any blood. Today, about three months after the operation, there is only a wound which is evidently healing into a scar.

"What Buwule had was simply a collection of fats that I had to get rid of," says Dr. Ssali. "He did not bleed or feel much pain during the operation because the swelling was already dead since blood supply had been cut off from the rest of the body by the medicine he was injected with that Monday."

Dr. Ssali is a herbalist in Kampala whose approach to medication is based on the theory that we get ill because our bodies are dirty. "About 85 percent deaths are due to accumulation of toxins in the body. The best way to rid ourselves of ill health is to keep our bodies waste-free at all times," he says.

He goes ahead to explain that the prostate gland for instance enlarges from accumulation of toxins due to failure of the liver to absorb them.

"The cure is in riding the gland of the toxins and providing minerals and irons to repair it. This is what the garlic clove provides," he explains about his approach to Buyondo's problem.

Dr. Ssali and the other people in his employment however become evasive, paddling you back to the actual herbal medication discussion when asked about where Ssali learned about herbal medicine from and his qualifications.

How he started

The father of eight says he has been practicing herbal medicine for about five years now, after two years of practising modern medicine whose results were disappointing.

Since he is 50 years old, this means he has only been practicing since he was 47 but does not clearly tell what he studied before then. "I trained as a medical doctor at Nairobi University then proceeded to Germany where I specialised in dermatology," he says.

He says that when he returned to Uganda to train, he found out that the drugs they were taught to use were not working as they had been said they would. "Calamine for instance did not cure itching as we had been taught it would," he says. On a visit to South Africa, Ssali says he met a person who was dealing in herbs, though haphazardly.

The dissatisfied 'doctor' got an insight into what could be got out of nature to aid health.

He set out on a mission to learn as much as he could about herbal medicine, buying numerous books and asking the elderly what plants they used to cure different ailments.

"I started to make my own drugs from the herbs in liquid form as syrups but realised I would have to devise means of preservation. I thus started to make my drugs in powder and tablet form, for instance aloe Vera tabs," he says. Today, Dr. Ssali is established at Dama Herbal Clinic in Mitchell Cotts where there are queues of patients waiting to see him with all sorts of ailments at all times of the day.

Almost everyone that has been his patient before or had the chance to discuss with him has become an ambassador of the doctor's theories and procedures.

"Back in the village where I come from, everyone now calls me doctor. I practice the health procedures with my family and any other sick people I meet," confesses Buyondo. Ssali has also trained others like Diana-Rose Nakanwagi who performed the operation on Mr Buwule.

With a glowing crease-free skin and unmistakable energy, Ssali hardly looks 50, a result of not having suffered any disease for over 10 years, he says. The trick, he reveals, is in keeping his body waste-free and balancing it as best as he can with the environment that harbors disease causing germs.

"I don't eat after 6p.m. and I rarely eat cooked food because it is only a burden for my body to digest yet it provides so little nutrient," he explains. He also says he prefers to eat what the cow eats instead of eating the cow itself.

According to him, we make our bodies dirty when we don't follow the physiological cycle and thus fall sick. The physiological cycle, he says, requires that we eat water laden fruits between 4a.m. and noon to aid waste elimination since this is the period of elimination by the body. It is between noon and 6p.m. that we can eat freely, but wisely.

"Eat small amounts of food, avoid meat and milk because the body hardly has the enzymes to digest such food. While the meat will remain in your body for seven days, the milk will decay there and become waste circulating in your blood system," he cautions. His theory is not to live to eat but rather eat to live.

After 6 to 8p.m., you should not eat, he cautions. This he calls the assimilation period for our bodies where they are trying to make use of what was consumed throughout the day.

"It's when we force the body to struggle to digest food when it shouldn't, that we wake up tired or lazy in the morning. Digestion takes up a lot of energy. When the body is not given enough time to digest food, it becomes waste," he says. "In fact the fat men moving around with sagging bellies are carrying waste."

He says that a healthy diet should consist of 60 percent fresh food which not only helps cleanse our bodies but also provides the minerals and irons we need in the body. In his words, "there is no better hospital in this country than Nakasero market".

"I deal with pressure, ulcers, epilepsy, diabetes, malaria, flu and everything else simply by riding the body of toxins and feeding it with what it requires. These are all caused from accumulation of waste from eating the wrong food at the wrong time of day," he says.

He says if we all bothered to understand how our bodies function, we would not have to spend most of our life fighting disease. "We fall sick because we eat wrongly. If we ate right, there would be no need for doctors," says Dr. Ssali.

His patients range from children to the elderly with both common ailments like malaria, fevers, itching, candida, flu and the seemingly complicated ones like keloids (extensive scars) and lipoma (swellings similar to what Buwule suffered), cardiac arrest and asthma. Buwule says he had to pay about Shs400,000 for his operation in addition to buying several of Ssali's herbal medicines which were recommended.

Patients at Dama Herbal Clinic are never admitted, but rather are given instructions on how to take care of themselves from home in addition to continuous scheduled visits back to the clinic for monitoring. This has led to some of the lost battles that have marred Dr. Ssali's career so far, although he maintains that there has never been a medical situation too complicated for him to handle.

"Some of the patients who have died even after being treated here are those that have not followed the instructions on how to cater for themselves after they leave this place. Persuading them to start eating only to live instead of living to eat for instance is among the most difficult thing to introduce to people," he explains.

Buyondo admits that it was difficult for him to adjust to not eating supper, avoiding sugar and eating raw food as much as he could. Some people however will not go the extra mile, so those with serious cases die.

Nakanwagi says the other victims who die are those who come too late for treatment and not even the herbalist can help them.

Dr. Ssali says he collaborates with the mainstream doctors at consultation level. "At times, I have to send some patients back for checking to confirm they are cured after I have treated them or refer them for check up before I venture into treating them," he explains.

He otherwise does not employ any modern medicine in his operations apart from the anaesthetic which he uses to numb patients before surgery mixed with herbal medicine to stop the bleeding. He has an assortment of drugs he has made from herbs which include soaps, syrups, beverages and tablets.

Although he has recently opened up a consultation branch in Mbarara, Ssali is not interested in opening more branches around the country.

"I'm mostly interested in empowering as many people as I can to take care of their health like I have done with those I have treated and the nurses I have recruited," he says, adding that, "In fact, there are patients I simply instruct over the phone on what to do without letting them come over to see me."

Some of the doctor's products

Mori

This herbal jelly relieves all common skin diseases.

Bazooka

Treats stubborn fever including resistant malaria. It's 100 percent organic.

Mosphonic

This is a jelly that is tropically applied at night to repel insects and bugs including mosquitoes, fleas, lice and bedbugs.

Mpewede ointment

This ointment is recommended for treating joint pains, burns, ringworms, skin rash and back pain.

Kwesiima cough mixture - Shs 2,500

An organic mixture of curative herbs for coughs, catarrah, sore throat. It relieves congestion from asthma and bronchitis.

Herbal tea-Shs 5, 000

A mixture of herbs specially selected and blended to make tea and deliver therapeutic benefits for digestion problems, hypertension, blood cleansing, diabetes and stress.

Closo- Shs4,500

This is a toxic-free powder made to neutralise acids and create a favourable condition in the mouth for maintaining dental health.

Juliet

A dental herbal powder. It is anti-bacterial, heals gum bleeding, and removes tooth stains and bad breath.