A woman who claimed to have cured thousands of people across Fiji had a gallon of her mysterious bush medicine analysed by government pharmacists.
A report in The Fiji Times on June 28, 1984 stated even government ministers, doctors and nurses had claimed to have been cured of diseases after drinking her herbal “brew”.
Selita Anthony had requested a licence from the Ministry of Health to run a herbal treatment business after being approached by thousands of people for her herbal “brew”.
The 29-year-old’s request for licence was under consideration by the ministry, and was awaiting results from the analysis of her herbal medicine.
Her herbal dispensary at Dreketi drew 12,000 people who sought a cure for their various ailments.
The Labasa Hospital had also taken a sample of the plant concoction for analysis at the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva.
The analysis was expected to prove whether herbal medicine could become a cure for everything, even cancer, Mrs Anthony claimed.
Mrs Anthony said by her own estimation, there was a 90 per cent success rate with her 12-plant concoction.
She had yet to record a single complaint or misgivings on the part of her “patients”.
“Sometimes a person comes back to take more after the ‘brew’, but eventually everyone is pleased,” she said.
Among her patients, Mrs Anthony had treated senior police officers and lawyers in Labasa and a few nurses and medical doctors.
Mrs Anthony was originally from Bua, Vanua Levu, and it was only after she married her husband, Stan Anthony, did she start practising herbal medicine.
She came into prominence after “curing” a cancer patient who was discharged from the hospital as an incurable case.
Since then, many other cancer victims claimed her concoction really did cure. Amelia Rokoba, a 52-year-old who was forced to retire because of stomach cancer, had been given radiotherapy and chemotherapy in Wellington Hospital in New Zealand.
“The cancer had been cured to some extent but had not been fully eradicated,” Ms Rokoba said.
“I always felt listless and was bedridden most of the time after the treatment in New Zealand but after taking Selita’s brew, I have regained a lot of strength and I am now able to walk around normally.”
It was noted not all people who visited Mrs Anthony were ill, but took the brew as a preventative measure.
