Ethiopia is in many ways remarkable in possessing lands of greatly
varying altitude, and hence of widely differing climate. Traditionally
the areas of differing altitude in which these lands were situated were
known as Qolla, or Lowlands, Dega, or Lands of Considerable Elevation,
and Wayna Dega, literally “Grape Highlands”, or lands of intermediary
elevation.
Temperature, Rainfall and Climate
Temperature and rainfall also varied very greatly. The country thus
included cold mountains, in some places at times covered with snow, and
torrid lowlands, some of which constituted some of the hottest places on
earth. Great differences in rainfall also occurred, and manifested
themselves in desert conditions at one extreme, and tropical jungle at
the other.
Such differences of elevation, and climate, in rainfall as well as in
temperature, were of immense importance. They led to a remarkably wide
variety of vegetation of all kinds, including trees, shrubs, and other
plants of medicinal value.
Medical Plants
The number, and variety, of such medicinal plants enabled the people
of Ethiopia, the inheritors of a long-established civilisation, to
develop, over the centuries, a very sophisticated knowledge of herbal
medicine. This enabled them to conquer the diseases, epidemic as well as
endemic, with which they were afflicted.
A Written Language
Ethiopia was also unusual on the African continent south of the
Sahara in possessing a written language: Ge‘ez, which can be traced back
to before the Christian era.
Ge‘ez literature, which was written on parchment, was for the most
part Biblical, or at least Christian in character. There was, however,
also a sizable amount of writing on secular themes, such as the royal
chronicles, works on philosophy, computation of calendar information,
legal texts, and – what we are concerned with today: medical text-books.
Medical Textbooks, and Their Age
We do not know when the Ethiopians began to record their medical
knowledge in writing. Medical texts were not treated with the same
reverence as religious works, and were therefore less often housed in
church or monastic libraries, where they would have been well preserved.
Medical textbooks were instead often kept in the possession of
individual practitioners, who used them for their medical purposes, and
were not so interested in their conservation.
The earliest Ethiopian medical texts known to us date back to the
seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. It may well, however, be the case
that such works are copies of much older texts, no longer extant, which
were worn out in use, or otherwise destroyed. The works from which they
were copied could have been many centuries older, and may have dated
perhaps from perhaps the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, or even
earlier.
Their Importance
Ethiopian medical texts are of immense historical importance, not
only for the understanding of Ethiopian medical history, but also in
that they embody a vast store of medical information. Much of this can
be of practical importance for the present day.
Traditional medicine has an advantage over modern medicine imported
from abroad in that it is often better understood, and appreciated, by
the rural population. Traditional medicine is also substantially
cheaper, and, no less important, less of a burden on the country’s
balance of foreign exchange.
Supplemented by Foreign Writings
The information recorded in the Ethiopian medical text-books can to
some extent be confirmed, as well as supplemented, by the writings of
innumerable foreign travellers, who have over the years written many
valuable accounts of the country’s medical practices. Such records date
back to the writings of the early sixteenth century Portuguese traveller
Fransisco Alvares, and also include accounts by many nineteenth and
early twentieth century foreign century observers, French, German,
Italian, and others. Some of them were trained doctors, surgeons, or
other medical observers.
Such foreign literature cannot be ignored: it contains for example
accounts of such traditional practices as bleeding and cupping, as well
as bone-setting, surgical operations, and the use of thermal water, none
of which figure at all in the Ethiopian medical textbooks.
Published Texts
Several of the more important Ethiopian medical text-books have been
published abroad during the present century, together with French,
Italian, English or other foreign translations, as well as a
considerable amount of annotation. Such annotation is of immense
medical, and other scholarly, importance, for it often identifies, at
least tentatively, the scientific, or Latin botanical names of the
plants mentioned in the texts.
Such published texts, translations and annotations are in fact so
important that it is impossible to do any serious research in the
investigation of traditional Ethiopian medicine, or on traditional
Ethiopian plants, without familiarising oneself with such literature: to
mention but two examples Marcel Griaule’s Le livre de recettes d’un
dabtara abyssin (Paris, 1930), and our old friend Stefan Strelcyn’s two
volume Medecine et plantes d’Ethiopie (Warsaw, 1968, Naples, 1973).
Strelcyn
Strelcyn’s researches, though extensive and of major scholarly
importance, by no means of course mark the end of such research, but in a
sense only a good beginning. It is imperative that further medical
texts be identified, published, translated, and annotated. We need a
series of new monographs, on the lines of Strelcyn’s work.
Medical Textbooks, and Traditional Practitioners
The publication of further Ethiopian medical texts must be
complimented by the recording of medical information from traditional
medical practitioners, large numbers of whom are still alive and
kicking, as the English phrase goes. Such research and publication
should be important in supplementing the information included in the
written texts, as well as in confirming the data included therein.
It this connection it is worthy of note that traditional Ethiopian
medicine forms part of a long-established tradition. This is evident
from the fact that our documentation reveals that the medicinal
properties of certain plants have been known in Ethiopia for centuries,
and that many medical prescriptions can be seen to have been used for
generations.
Monographs and/or Journal
We should be thinking in terms of the publication of an on-going
series of monographs on the work of present-day traditional
practitioners, or else of a regular Journal, in which traditional
medical prescriptions can be published on a regular or irregular basis.
Such publications could well be the responsibility of the Ethiopian
Institute of Biodiversity, the Association of Traditional Ethiopian
Medical Practitioners, and/or the University Medical Faculties.
Medicinal Botanical Gardens
And, while we are at it, why don’t we establish a botanical garden of
traditional plants, perhaps somewhat like the Chelsea Physics Garden,
in London. And why not have smaller botanical gardens attached to
schools (and perhaps also Government office compounds) all over the
country?
In that way Ethiopia’s youth, as well as the urban population, will
be familiarised with the medical side of their country’s cultural
heritage.
All this may also contribute to health!
Source: http://www.linkethiopia.org
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