Ethiopia’s ancient and still very much alive culture of traditional medicine is highlighted in this week’s Corner. Prof. Pankhurst urges us to give traditional Ethiopian medical science a larger profile…
Several weeks ago I was most graciously invited to be Guest of Honour at the Graduation Day of Addis Ababa University’s Faculty of Medicine. Besides handing out certificates and prizes – and having my (and Rita’s) photograph taken (all very flattering) I was expected to deliver a brief address, which, dear reader: Singing for my Supper, as you might say. I would like to share my thoughts with you today.
My talk, I should explain, was on the History of Ethiopian Medicine and Surgery.
Ethiopia, because of its antiquity (and relatively considerable historical sources), I argued, has a long history – in which the story of medicine and surgery can aptly be inserted.
It is a history in which it is possible to see the impact on society of the principal endemic diseases – and to trace the story of epidemics (smallpox, cholera, typhus, influenza, perhaps even rabies) – and famines – with some chronological precision.
The country, because of its widely varying altitude (and hence climate) – and the existence of a written language, I continued, – also has an extensive recorded pharmacopoiea.
This was drawn mainly from the Vegetable Kingdom (leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, etc.) – but also to some extent taken from the Animal and Mineral Kingdoms.
Considerable use was likewise made of variolation (or traditional vaccination), and counter-irritation, as well as thermal and steam baths (known in Amhaic as wesheba).
Ethiopians of the past also practiced relatively sophisticated surgery, including bone-setting and – trepanning.
I had a visit only a few days ago, I told my audience, from a foreign traveler who went to Lalibela, made his way to a tej bet; perhaps drank too much tej (who knows?); fell down some stairs – and dislocated his ankle: he was given the choice of going to a modern hospital – or visiting a traditional practitioner.
He chose to go to the local practitioner – and was walking in four days – the hospital would have taken several months.
Ethiopia’s medical history, I have always felt, is one of immense fascination:
It deserves a larger place in the general history of the country than is generally given to it.
I believe it also deserves a major place in the Ethiopian medical curriculum.
Just as today’s modern Ethiopian artists should know something of their country’s artistic traditions, so should today’s doctors and surgeons seek to understand their own medical heritage – and take pride in it!
Though Ethiopia is changing – and has changed – radically from generation to generation – there would seem to be a practical value for modern doctors and surgeons to understand the modes of thought, and expectations, of traditional practitioners – and above all of their patients.
But Ethiopia’s medical history, quite apart from this, can be an interesting field of research.
Ethiopia’s medical history lends itself to serious research – and to the scholars’ survival in the world of Publish or Perish.
It would thus be reasonable for newly graduated doctors to study the medical structure in which they are inducted, and to study the pattern of traditional medicine with which they have to operate, if not compete.
They might likewise contribute to a Journal of the History of Ethiopian Medicine and Surgery – which it is our duty to inaugurate.
Ethiopia, we must recognize, is now enmeshed in what Karl Polanyi might term a Great Transformation:
- The Population is expanding…
- More and more land is coming under cultivation
- Forests, and strips of land on the borders of individual plots, or beside river-beds, are disappearing
- Bio-diversity is being reduced
- And many “wild” plants – hitherto used in traditional medicine – are being eliminated.
And at the same time:
- Urbanization is divorcing people from the land
- and divorcing them also from rural knowledge
Half a century ago the great majority of Addis Ababa citizens would have known dozens of medicinal plants. Today many are familiar only with expensive ferenje medicine purchased from modern ferenje-style pharmacies!
Moreover: With the advance of Modern Education, traditional Ethiopian knowledge of plants – including medicinal plants – is being lost – even in the Countryside.
That’s where, I argued, my proposed Journal of the History of Ethiopian Medicine and Surgery comes in. One of its principal objectives would be to publish reports on traditional medicines and treatments currently in use, as well as to publish newly found medical texts – as soon as they are discovered.
This is important because although we have detailed Ethiopian medical texts – some of the most interesting dating to the 17th century – the identification of the plants to which they refer poses difficulties: some plants have more than one name; and some names apply to more than one plant.
The intrinsic value of traditional Ethiopian medical knowledge is however often confirmed by subsequent modern scientific research.
The publication of the proposed Journal would encourage research – and be a valuable tool for the advancement of knowledge on Ethiopian medicine.
It would publish medical texts, accounts of on-going traditional medicine and surgery, also regional variations – which have thus far never been considered at all. Also: Studies of the physical remains of wesheba (or steam-baths) which still exist.
Such research – and publication – would carry us further on a path already charted by scholars of the past, among them Stephen Strelcyn, in Poland, as well as modern Ethiopian scholars, such as Ermias Dagne and Fekadu Fulass.
All this would lead – significantly – to the Advancement of Knowledge!
But it was then time, I felt, to look to the future – and to congratulate the successful graduates
They represented. I said, part of what one might call a long chapter in the history of Ethiopia’s medical modernization.
In this context we could see the Ehiopian rulers of medieval times writing to Europe for medical help. We could see the coming of foreigners with medical skills (as well as the coming of foreigners believed incorrectly of having such skills).
We could see moreover;
- the establishment in Menilek’s day of Addis Ababa’s first hospita
- the coming of Haqim Worknqeh, the first modern Ethiopian doctor
- the sending of students abroad to study medicine
- the opening by a Georgian, Dr Mérab, of Addis Ababa’s first Pharmacy
- the creation of Addis Ababa University’s own Medical Faculty
And so on, and so forth: right on up to the Graduation at which I spoke.
So what, dear reader, about my proposed Journal?
(Originally published in Capital newspaper)
Richard Pankhurst 
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