African Entrepreneurship Record

Of course, despite the difficulties in constructing the Cabinda railway, it is not impossible for East Africa, given the extensive experience accumulated during the construction of the Hessen Railway. Therefore, the feasibility of this tropical rainforest railway crossing the Congo River is quite high.

The only drawback is that Cabinda lacks a direct railway to Luanda. The starting point of the western coastal railway is right across from Cabinda, at the town of Soyo on the southern bank of the Congo River mouth, severing the direct connection between Cabinda and the southern cities of Angola.

However, at present, Cabinda does not have the confidence that Luanda City enjoys, and extending the Kinshasa railway to Cabinda City would be considered a blessing.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this idea from the Cabinda City government, but once the oil resources of Cabinda are developed, Cabinda will fully have the potential to become one of the strongest cities in East Africa.

After all, the oil resources of Cabinda alone are equivalent to about half of the national oil resources of the former Far East Empire. Coupled with these locational advantages of a port city and policy inclination, its importance to East Africa far exceeds that of Luanda.

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With the construction of the ”Three Divisions,” it is driving the transfer of resources across East Africa to these three areas, which naturally includes new schools and hospitals.

However, the current educational and medical conditions in these areas naturally cannot compare with those in the central and eastern regions, take Cabinda City as an example.

Cabinda only has one hospital for the entire city, and the entire hospital has only over seventy people, equivalent to one doctor per over a thousand people.

But this is much better than the overall level in the west, where there is only one doctor for about three thousand people. Cabinda, as a city, therefore already counts as having relatively good conditions, and only this high city-level status allows for such a situation. In other backward towns, it could only be worse.

”Mr. Luofu, two more patients were brought in today.”

Today, the city hospital received two patients, both of whom, without exception, were Black people. From this point, it seems that the laborers in East Africa are treated quite well since medical care, as a scarce resource, can still be used on Black people, which in the context of the 19th century, seems a bit of a ”waste.”

Of course, East Africa cannot truly be so benevolent to treat their illnesses gratuitously. Besides being an important labor resource in East Africa, these indigenous patients are also valuable medical material.

After all, the medical level and doctor’s quality in the 19th century were extremely backward, and to improve doctor quality, numerous clinical trials are necessary.

Evidently, this experimental subject was unsuitable to use domestic citizens for, whereas Black people were different; it was possible to try prescriptions and treatments with boldness, which was one of the important reasons for the rapid development of medicine in East Africa.

Luofu was accustomed to looking at his patients but was in no rush to get involved, instead, letting his students take a look first: ”Bronze, take a look at the situation first, and then report to me.”

A slightly immature young man, after putting on gloves, said, ”Yes, teacher.”

He approached the two Black patients and started observing and inquiring about the symptoms. Under the rule of the former Portuguese, these Black people only understood basic Portuguese or some directive German, evidently unable to answer his professional questions.

Therefore, Bronze could only confirm the sickness by analyzing parts of the patient, first measuring the temperature, then prying open the Black man’s mouth to observe the state of the tongue coating, followed by checking the focus.

After observing for several minutes, Bronze said with some uncertainty: ”Teacher, this symptom seems to be some kind of inflammation. The patient’s body carries a high temperature, the wound has red and swollen scars with clear boundaries... it seems to have dragged on for a long time, but the specific issue is unknown.”

Luofu nodded and said, ”These are all basics; it seems to be some kind of skin disease, I tend to think it’s erysipelas, as previous patients had similar cases.”

”’The Compendium of Herbal Medicine’ records: ’Willow leaves... children’s erysipelas. Use one catty of willow leaves, add one dou of water, boil to obtain three sheng of juice, wash the affected area. It is advisable to wash seven or eight times a day...’ So there must contain some kind of chemical component in willow leaves, which indicates there was a good efficacy in ancient times in the Far East Empire, otherwise, it couldn’t have been recorded in detail. Of course, whether it’s pertinent has to be seen, but we don’t have willow leaves here, so we can first prescribe some anti-inflammatory drugs.”

As for ”Herbal Medicine,” Bronze was naturally quite familiar. It’s one of the required readings, listed in the East African Pharmacopoeia compiled by the East African Traditional Chinese Medicine Association.

The East African Pharmacopoeia is an encyclopedia of medicines compiled by the East African Traditional Chinese Medicine Association based on the world’s great medical works, prescriptions, and the unique herbal varieties native to East Africa.

”Erysipelas, also called a skin disease, under the microscope, we can conclude that it is a disease caused by viruses or bacteria, and willow leaves contain some component that has inhibitory effects on this virus or bacteria. Therefore, our focus should be on finding this virus or bacteria, which may even be a fungal component.”

”Every country’s medicine has its merits, yet the most accomplished one is traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine is richly supported by data, with records of various diseases.”

”Just take our inclusion of the ’Compendium of Herbal Medicine’ in East Africa; there are thirteen versions, including a royal collection copy and two versions from Japan, indicating that the ’Compendium of Herbal Medicine’ has undergone significant content changes up to today’s circulation. After all, medicine must be rigorous, and any subtle change might result in severe medical incidents.”

”Of course, these minute adjustments are also justified since every doctor has their own experience and knowledge, so such minute changes could very likely be a form of correction and improvement that we cannot ignore.” Luofu eloquently explained to his students.

”Certainly, I say this in hopes that in the future you can draw knowledge from ancient texts. Such knowledge is ultimately valuable wealth, such as the inhibition of erysipelas by willow leaves. Currently, it is said that the national medical laboratory is extracting its component, while, in fact, ancient Egypt also had similar treatment cases, so drawing on various strengths is an important process for our continuous progress in medicine.”

The national medical laboratory that Luofu spoke of had already achieved a considerable success since myriad medical cases and treatment plans recorded in traditional Chinese medicine could be practically endless, and East Africa was only extracting the pharmaceutical chemical components on this basis.

This is tantamount to pointing out the research direction, rather than blindly bumping around like a headless fly and breaking through accidentally.

And there has been substantial progress on the extraction of components from willow leaves, something everyone might not understand. In fact, the anti-inflammatory and analgesic effect in willow bark is due to salicylic acid, although current side effects are too significant, thus not yet widely utilized, and it’s still being further refined in the laboratory.

The most famous product from the previous life about the component in salicylic acid is ”Aspirin,” developed by Hoffman in Germany, and the time when Hoffman conducted his research nearly coincided with that of East Africa.

Certainly, the East African Traditional Chinese Medicine Association is unaware of Hoffman’s existence, and their research project entirely found its direction in the medical ancient books of the Far East Empire. Of course, wanting to extract the active ingredient in the ancient books is impossible without the foundation of chemistry.

Hence, East African medicine is actively recruiting talents from various walks of life, or rather, studying knowledge from other areas to better propel the development of East African medicine.

In this way, East African traditional Chinese medicine naturally more easily produces results, just the knowledge from the Far East Empire medical classics themselves can suffice for their lifelong research.

Just like the extraction of ”salicylic acid,” it initially pointed direction through traditional Chinese medicine classics, and East African doctors then figured out ways to extract this component through modern means. In the future, if improved successfully, it could hopefully turn into a potent drug like ”Aspirin.”