Chapter 49 Disease Prevention and Control

December 7, 1866. East African colonies.

Great Lakes Region (Lake Victoria), Mwanza.

Today, the Great Lakes Region is the second largest region in East Africa in terms of colonial settler population after the Upper Littoral Region, and is adjacent to the Mwanza Bay of the Great Lake (Lake Victoria).

The Great Lakes region has abundant water resources, fertile land and a mild climate. The Great Lake (Victoria) was formed by the accumulation of water in the basin and is the source of the Nile River. Located between the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, the East African Colony currently controls the southern shore of the Great Lakes region, while other areas are in the hands of the indigenous people.

The first primitive fishing industry in the East African colonies also began here. They were simple canoes used to catch fish in the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) as a supplement to meat.

Today's Great Lake (Lake Victoria) is not as devastated by the introduction of farmed Nile perch as it was in later times.

Therefore, the specialty freshwater fish in the big lake are more diverse, and the lake water is not polluted, so it is safe to eat.

The Great Lakes region is a relatively humid and rainy area in Africa. The vast area of ​​the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) has directly changed the local climate environment.

In sub-Saharan Africa, humidity is not necessarily a good term; for example, Nigeria and Congo in later times were hotbeds of tropical diseases.

Mosquitoes are also very difficult to deal with in East Africa because the equator passes through the middle of Africa. In most parts of Africa, the temperature basically remains above 20 degrees, which is suitable for the breeding of mosquitoes all year round.

A large number of infectious diseases such as malaria and dengue fever are transmitted to humans through mosquitoes.

In later generations, East Africa became a severely affected area for various diseases such as malaria. In addition to the low level of medical care, the biggest problem was the infestation of mosquitoes.

In his previous life, Ernst worked in Tanzania. Although protective measures were relatively good, there were so many mosquitoes in Africa that Ernst was infected with malaria twice.

That was the 21st century. Ernst, a modern man, was still infected even with the help of mosquito nets and mosquito coils. You can imagine how terrifying Africa is in the eyes of Europeans today.

Up to now, most of the colonies of European countries in Africa were narrow coastal plains, and they did not dare to go deep into the interior.

The Ottoman Empire owned the largest area of ​​land in Africa, mainly in North Africa and Ethiopia. The second was the Portuguese, who opened up colonies of Angola and Mozambique. The third was France, which mainly owned a small amount of land in North Africa and West Africa. Finally, there was the Cape Colony under the British. Other countries, Spain and the Netherlands were negligible.

Therefore, Ernst's East African colony was unique in Africa and was the first colony to penetrate deep into the African inland plateau.

The Portuguese colonies were also relatively large, but the Portuguese management was rather rough. Their method was to control the indigenous tribes by using the indigenous tribes, fanning the flames everywhere, and finally reaping the benefits.

Although the East African colonies were full of evil people, Ernst really ran them as if they were his own home. Although this sacrificed the interests of the indigenous people, it made it convenient for future immigrants, and he was preparing to live here for a long time.

Comparing the Portuguese colonies with the East African colonies, it is not an exaggeration to say that they were exhausting the resources. It was only because of the current environment that Portugal could get away with it. After World War II, African countries were still driven out by the natives at the instigation of the United States and the Soviet Union.

Of course, this is the history of the previous life. Maybe this world will be annexed by the East African colonies. In any case, Ernst will not let go of Mozambique. How can he allow others to snore beside his bed?

The Portuguese have a criminal record. They once thought about attacking the Sultanate of Zanzibar, but they were beaten up in the end.

There are also Zimbabwe and Zambia regions, where the Portuguese also entered a few years ago, but eventually withdrew due to an outbreak of disease among the indigenous people.

Therefore, the greedy Portuguese will sooner or later take action on the East African colonies, and Ernst must keep a close eye on them. If the East African colonies develop smoothly, then it will be the turn of the Portuguese to worry about their own colonies.

The annual temperature in Dongfeng is above 20 degrees, which causes mosquitoes to reproduce rampantly and various viruses to be more active.

At present, disease is also the biggest problem threatening the survival of immigrants, so addressing health issues in the East African colonies has always been a major issue.

Among them, water sources near residential areas are strictly managed and any behavior that pollutes water sources is strictly prohibited.

Clean up bushes, puddles and other environments suitable for mosquito breeding by means of fire, burying the soil, etc.

In large water bodies, some natural enemy fish of mosquito larvae are released to control their population size.

In the East African colonies, diseases such as malaria were like a lottery, picking out the unlucky immigrants. Fortunately, quinine had already appeared in this era.

Ernst also specially introduced cinchona tree species from South America and cultivated them in suitable places in East Africa, as well as various Chinese herbal medicines.

Western medicine is still relatively metaphysical and not fully mature. Bloodletting is still the mainstream treatment method used by contemporary doctors. In 1833 alone, France imported more than 40 million leeches.

Fortunately, more and more scholars are beginning to question and oppose the theories of traditional Western medicine, and Ernst is in the era of transition from traditional Western medicine to modern medicine.

The 19th century was the era when Western medicine entered a period of rapid development. Western medicine companies were established one after another, such as Merck (USA) in 1816, Pfizer (USA) in 1849, Novartis (Switzerland) in 1859, Bayer (Germany) in 1863, Glaxo (UK) in 1873, SmithKline (UK) in 1875, Abbott (USA) in 1888 and Roche (Switzerland) in 1896. Humanity entered the era of Western medicine.

It is undeniable that in some current European and American medical laboratories, countless crystallizations of medical wisdom may be emerging, and will completely replace the position of traditional medicine in the next few decades.

But this process was long and it took until the 20th century for the edifice of modern medicine to be completely established.

Although cutting-edge medicine has made rapid progress, the mainstream clinical medicine in the current era is still practiced by traditional "old Western medicine".

These "old Western doctors" who have not yet been eliminated still have the same understanding of diseases, bacteria and viruses as in the previous era, and they have no concept of anesthesia, hemostasis and disinfection during surgery. Therefore, outrageous medical accidents often occur.

Ernst didn't dare to gamble with them, so he felt more at ease with those prescriptions that were proven and had few side effects.

In addition to obtaining some local herbs from the native peoples of East Africa, we also look for some mature and reliable medicines from traditional Chinese and Western medicine.

For example, quinine, artemisia annua, and other drugs that are effective against malaria. Ernst is not a medical student and does not know how to handle these drugs.

But it is better to have medicine at hand than to have no medicine at all if colonial immigrants are unfortunately infected with malaria.

We can only boil these two things into water to drink. It's not that we don't want to use extracted medicines, but the cost is too high. The colony is so large and the population is not small, so the expenses in all aspects are not small. However, there is almost no extra cost for growing medicines except for the labor cost.

The land is ready, and as long as the environment is suitable, you can plant as much as you want, but ordering drugs from Europe is expensive.

At present, the most effective means of preventing and controlling infectious diseases in the East African colonies is isolation. Once a problem is discovered, the individual will be isolated.

If your immunity is good, you will survive. If not, you will die in pain.

Of course, Ernst also purchased some medicines, but due to transportation reasons, most of the medicines were in the upper coastal area closest to the port.

The inland areas are lagging behind in the supply of materials and medicines, so this requires the inland colonial outposts to exercise greater subjective initiative than the coastal areas.

Organize more immigrants to carry out sanitation and cleaning activities, centrally plan and manage garbage and excrement, eliminate mosquito habitats, and plant mosquito-repellent plants (East Africa is the origin of pyrethrum)...

To prevent the spread of infectious diseases to the greatest extent possible, in today's era, it can be said that East African colonial immigrants have the world's leading concept of hygiene.

They may not know what hygiene is, but they know that their superiors require them not to litter, eat food randomly, or urinate or defecate anywhere...

These were enforced by the colonial management, otherwise those who violated the rules would be severely punished.

The colonial management actually did not have much knowledge of hygiene, but Ernst forced the colonies to follow his instructions, and Ernst righteously told the colonial management that these were the conclusions reached by European experts.

Whether colonial officials believed it or not, after doing what Ernst said, disease in the East African colonies was indeed kept at a low level.

Compared with other countries’ colonies, the effect is remarkable, even better than some mature regions and countries, such as neighboring Mozambique and India in South Asia.

(End of this chapter)