Medical Developments at the Time of Menilek We saw last week how rivalry between the European powers in Addis Ababa led, during the reign of Emperor Menilek, to the establishment of clinics, at the Italian, French and British legation. They competed with the Russian hospital, a truly pioneering institution which had been established a few years earlier. Now read on! Ras Makonnen’s Leprosarium Foreign medicine also began to make its appearance in the provinces at about the same time. In…

Menilek, Medicine and International relations We saw last week how foreign medicines gained increasing popularity during the reign of Emperor Yohannes. Now read on! Menilek The coming of modern medicine to Ethiopia advanced significantly further during the reign of Menilek, a period of relative peace, when foreign contacts expanded. This period also witnessed the founding of Addis Ababa, and all the modernisation which followed therefrom. Italian Contacts Despite Menileks reputed interest in innovation, significant developments in the medical field took…

Ethiopia a Century and a Half Ago We saw last week that foreign medicines had long been in great demand in Ethiopia. We saw also that, by the middle of the nineteenth century, such medicines were relatively well known, and relatively much used, at the country’s more important towns, particularly in governing and related circles. King Sahla Sellase King Sahla Sellase of Shawa was in particular a great fan of foreign medical treatment. This is fully apparent in the often…

The Medical Activities in the Early 19th Century Successors We saw last week that the rulers and people of Ethiopia had long been interested in foreign medical practice of all kinds. Valuable evidence of this is to be found in the writings of foreign travellers, who were frequently approached by Ethiopians of all classes requiring medical advice or assistance. Making of Amulets Two of the visiting foreign travellers approached for cures, in the 1830s, were the French Saint Simonian missionaries…

The Medical Activities of James Bruce, and his 19th Century Successors The rulers of Ethiopia, as we saw last week, had long been interested in foreign medicines, and foreign medical practice of all kinds. This was, as we have already suggested, no less apparent in the eighteenth century, at the time of the visit to the country of the famous Scottish traveller James Bruce. Smallpox Stricken Massawa Bruce, whose claims of medical prowess must not, I fear, be taken too…

Medical Activities in Early Times Though Ethiopia long had its own system of medical lore, and a remarkably extensive local traditional pharmacopoeia, the people of the country were for centuries deeply interested in foreign medical practices of all kinds. The Sixteenth Century Evidence of Ethiopia’s historic thirst for foreign medicine can be traced back to at least the early sixteenth century. A member of the first Portuguese mission to Ethiopia, Joao Bermudes, who arrived in the country in the 1520s,…