African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 862: Chapter 66: East African Medicine

Some village elementary schools have a severe shortage of textbooks, teaching materials, and teachers, which is obviously detrimental to the development of elementary education. However, by merging several village schools into the town, this problem can be greatly resolved.

This is also closely related to the layout of East African villages, which are generally clustered around a town, with several closely adjacent villages forming a star-like pattern. Conversely, if the villages are too far away, promoting the concentration of educational resources becomes more harmful than beneficial, as no one would feel at ease with their children walking several miles to attend school.

Of course, if due to special reasons it is impossible to concentrate, the qualification to run schools can be retained. This mainly depends on the specific local circumstances, to be handled at a local level and reported accordingly.

Ernst continued: ”Healthcare is a weak point in East Africa, or rather modern medicine is. On this point, we in East Africa need to vigorously promote traditional Chinese medicine clinics in rural areas and localize the Chinese medicine industry in East Africa.”

The advantage of traditional Chinese medicine is precisely this: many herbal medicines can be grown in the fields, thus gaining a price advantage.

While modern pharmaceuticals are more effective, East Africa is a latecomer in the modern medical field, and these drugs entail great uncertainty and are not easy to analyze.

Modern pharmaceutical patents are monopolized by developed pharmaceutical and chemical companies in Europe and America. East Africa cannot, like pirating a ”machine,” dismantle these modern chemical drugs for analysis and research, as even minor deviations can lead to disasters.

Therefore, modern medicine can only be slowly explored, with no shortcuts to speak of. The only shortcut is to vigorously train relevant personnel to achieve self-research capabilities as soon as possible.

Of course, saying so is somewhat absolute, as East Africa naturally has its channels to hasten the unrestrained growth of East Africa’s ”modern medicine.”

This is ”human experiments,” after all, East Africa has twenty million Black people, who are rare ”materials.” However, this belongs to the dark side of East African society, so it is not elaborated on much.

And the abundance of clinical trial opportunities means that East Africa’s development speed in the medical field is not slow. It’s like the previous generation’s Indian medical industry; especially its pharmaceutical field was outstanding because India had a lot of ”materials,” making it a natural large-scale drug testing ground.

Of course, the speed of development in East African modern medicine, no matter how fast, cannot compare with the immediacy of East African traditional Chinese medicine. And now Chinese medicine holds advantages in terms of cost and talent cultivation, which is also why East Africa is vigorously promoting the popularization of Chinese medicine.

Under the guidance of the East African Traditional Chinese Medicine Association, the cultivation of Chinese medicine talents in East Africa is now institutionalized, abandoning the apprenticeship system. Concurrently, it has corrected and rectified many prescriptions’ deficiencies and errors through ”native” participation, and given Africa’s climate and geographical differences from the Far East, many new plant-based medicines have been added to Chinese medicine in East Africa.

In fact, Chinese medicine in East Africa has completely deviated now. Many Chinese medicine hospitals and schools even have equipped microscopes and petri dishes and have embarked on a completely different path from the traditional Chinese medicine of the current Far East Empire.

Due to ”material” reasons, East African Chinese medicine has rapidly advanced in human anatomy, with more detailed human studies overthrowing many traditional cognitions and superstitions.

In the field of drug research and development, East African Chinese medicine has made rapid progress. Of course, this is related to the now weak ”patent” awareness of various countries in the Far East. Thus, East Africa, through various means such as ”stealing, buying, and borrowing,” vigorously cracks traditional prescriptions and reagents, then patents them.

This is not targeted only at the Far East Empire but also includes countries like Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, all of which have suffered. Beyond the East Asian cultural sphere, India and the Arab regions are also targets for East Africa.

These ”backward” regions in the eyes of Europe and America have medical systems that the West naturally looks down on or even discriminates against. East Africa is evidently not in this category, welcoming all comers.

In such an environment, East African Chinese medicine integrates the strengths of various schools, supported by modern medical technology and methods. It’s difficult not to develop robustly. The boundary between East African Chinese medicine and modern medicine is now not very distinct either.

After all, the capabilities of modern medicine are also mine; those I do not possess, I have alternatives for. Under such circumstances, except for some unique drug usage habits and slightly different treatment methods, it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart.

The achievements of East African Chinese medicine are naturally borrowed by East African modern medicine. Therefore, the two systems now show a trend of integration. If not deliberately stopped, East Africa may form a modern Chinese medicine system with East African characteristics in the future.

So, East Africa today is both a ”medical weak nation” and a ”medical strong nation.” It depends on how one compares it. Compared to Europe and America’s medicine, East Africa’s medicine has incorporated medical achievements from East Asia and other regions, while compared to traditional Chinese medicine, East Africa also boasts attributes of European and American medicine.

In this way, East African medicine naturally heads down an extremely ”unique” path, although in Ernst’s view, this is a good thing.

Because, in reality, the regional medical systems bear mutual prejudices—for example, European religious and fundamentalist medicine will definitely internally conflict and clash with modern medicine. The traditional medicine of the Far East does not recognize European and American medicine, which see all other medical systems as ”heretical” and ”sorcery.”

East Africa, however, has broken such ”arrogance and prejudice,” enabling various schools to communicate and compete with each other, creating a situation akin to a ”contend of a hundred schools of thought” in the medical world.

With a hundred flowers blooming, Ernst believes it can naturally speed up the development of East African medicine, which he is delighted to see. After all, it ultimately comes down to whose treatment is most effective, and the final results are all ultimately East Africa’s.

Of course, while East Africa is strong in medicine in some ways, it is also very weak in others. For example, in the cutting-edge field of Western modern medicine, East Africa is undoubtedly lagging, especially in some chemical high-performance drugs.

It’s the same with traditional Chinese medicine, where many traditional Chinese medicine practices ”guard their treasures behind closed doors,” and the practitioners who immigrate to East Africa aren’t among the ”top-notch” in the Far East.

However, precisely because of this, East African traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are able to break free of conservative ideas and develop vigorously under Ernst’s tacit approval. If they lack ambition, even Ernst wouldn’t be able to support them.

Currently, in the East African medical system, Chinese medicine clearly holds an advantage, but over time, it has also changed beyond recognition.

If future East African Chinese medicine groups visit the Far East, they might be scolded as ”heretical,” compounded by the fact that East Africa indeed ”took and borrowed” quite a lot, which is somewhat ungracious.

Of course, East African Chinese medicine is not mature yet, and lacks the opportunity to present itself to the International Community. After all, neither Eastern nor Western societies would recognize ”East African medicine” that appears confused and disjointed.

Moreover, cultivating medical talents in East Africa requires a lot of time. To produce a cohort of experienced ”masters” certainly takes a decade or so. Currently, there are too few young professionals able to take on big responsibilities.

As for the present ”medical titans” of East Africa, their level is actually comparable to some so-called ”masters” in the modern history of the Far East Empire. Their skill level may not be very high, but as pioneers and trailblazers, many could make a name in East African medical history, as the earlier they begin, the greater the chance to become foundational figures in various disciplines of East African medicine.

They merely select the essence and discard the dross from Eastern, Western, and global medicine, not entirely engaging in ”self-innovation.”