Mama Day has several points that are relevant to medicine, not the least of which is the remarkable partnership between Mama Day and the inland physician, who function as collaborators with a great deal of mutual respect. Everyone in the community knows about Mama Day "beyond the bridge" (on the mainland) and when she calls Dr. Smithfield, they know it must be urgent.

With excellent diagnostic skill, Mama Day performs internal and external exams with ease and treats illnesses with herbal medicine and common sense. "Although it hurt [Smithfield's] pride at times, he'd admit inside it was usually no different than what he had to say himself–just plainer words and a slower cure than them concentrated drugs" (p. 84). The Mama Day character juxtaposed against those of Dr. Buzzard, the charlatan "medicine man," and Ruby, who works the spell on Cocoa, creates interesting questions about what "alternative medicine" is, as well as questions about what kind of medicine is validated in Western society and what is dismissed.

The question of Cocoa's illness is fascinating. George thinks it is "brain fever;" Cocoa thinks it is a virus at first;" Mama Day knows it is nightshade poisoning, but also knows it is more than that. Cocoa's symptoms change as she experiences more and more hallucinations, and readers are tempted to think what Cocoa experiences as worms eating her away from the inside are simply that, and the horrible stench is simply an infection until, after having sex with her, George finds one of the worms on his penis. What caused Cocoa's mysterious illness and her healing are never answered, compelling readers to consider the extent to which the body's mechanisms of illness and healing remain a mystery.