December 7, 1866. East African colony.
Great Lakes Region (Lake Victoria), Mwanza.
By now, the Great Lakes Region had become the area in the East African colony with the second-largest immigrant population after the Upper Coastal Region. Here lay Mwanza Bay, pressed close against the great lake, Lake Victoria.
The Great Lakes Region was rich in water resources, with fertile land and a mild climate. The great lake, Lake Victoria, had formed from water pooling in a basin and was the source of the Nile River. Situated within the East African Rift Valley, the East African colony currently controlled the southern shore of the Great Lakes Region, while the other areas remained in indigenous hands.
The East African colony's first primitive fishing industry had also begun here. They were all simple dugout canoes, used to catch fish from the great lake, Lake Victoria, as a supplement to their meat supply.
Today's great lake, Lake Victoria, was unlike that of later generations, where the introduction and farming of Nile perch had devastated ecological diversity.
Thus, the lake's distinctive freshwater fish were relatively diverse, and the unpolluted lake water made eating them reassuring as well.
The Great Lakes Region was a relatively humid and rainy part of Africa. The vast expanse of the great lake, Lake Victoria, directly altered the local climate.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, however, humidity was not necessarily a good thing. Nigeria and the Congo of later generations, for instance, became breeding grounds for tropical diseases.
Mosquitoes were also extraordinarily troublesome in East Africa. Because the equator ran through the middle of Africa, temperatures across most of the continent remained above twenty degrees Celsius, more or less, throughout the year—perfect for mosquito breeding.
Malaria, dengue fever, and a whole host of infectious diseases were all spread to humans through mosquitoes.
In later generations, East Africa became one of the hardest-hit areas for malaria and all manner of diseases. Aside from its low standard of medical care, the greatest problem was the rampant mosquito population.
In his previous life, Ernst had worked in Tanzania. Though he had taken fairly good protective measures, there were simply too many mosquitoes in Africa, and he had contracted malaria twice.
That had been the twenty-first century. Even Ernst, a modern man armed with mosquito nets and mosquito coils, had still been struck. One could well imagine how terrifying Africa appeared to Europeans in this era.
Up to this point, the colonies held by European nations in Africa were mostly narrow coastal plains; none dared venture deep into the interior.
The Ottoman Empire possessed the largest expanse of land in Africa, mainly in North Africa and Ethiopia. Second came the Portuguese, who had opened up Angola and the Mozambique colony. Third was France, whose territory was mainly limited to North Africa and a small amount of land in West Africa. Last came the Cape Colony under British control. Other nations, such as Spain and the Netherlands, could be ignored.
Thus, Ernst's East African colony already stood alone in Africa, the first colony to push deep into the African interior plateau.
The Portuguese colonies were also rather large, but Portuguese administration was crude. Their method was to use indigenous tribes to control other indigenous tribes, fanning the flames everywhere before reaping the fisherman's profit.
Though the East African colony was also a case of all crows under heaven being equally black, Ernst truly ran it as his own home. Indigenous interests were sacrificed, but it made things easier for future immigrants. He intended to remain here for the long haul.
Compared with the East African colony, calling the Portuguese colony a case of draining the pond to catch the fish would not be an exaggeration. It was only because the current environment allowed it that Portugal could get away scot-free. After World War II, however, under the instigation of America and Soviet Union, African nations would still sweep them out the door.
Of course, that was history from his previous life. Perhaps this world's Mozambique colony would be annexed by the East African colony instead. In any case, Ernst would not let Mozambique go. How could another be allowed to snore beside one's couch?
The Portuguese had prior offenses. Back then, they had set their sights on the Sultanate of Zanzibar, only to be beaten soundly in the end.
They had also entered the regions of Zimbabwe and Zambia several years earlier, but withdrew after disease broke out among the indigenous population.
Thus, those greedy Portuguese would sooner or later make a move against the East African colony. Ernst had to keep a constant watch. If the East African colony developed smoothly, then it would be the Portuguese's turn to worry about their own colonies.
East Africa's year-round temperatures above twenty degrees Celsius allowed mosquitoes to multiply without restraint, while all kinds of viruses remained relatively active as well.
Disease was currently the greatest threat to immigrant survival, so addressing the East African colony's sanitation problems had always been a major matter.
Among the measures was strict management of water sources near settlements, with any act of polluting water sources strictly forbidden.
Bushes, puddles, and other environments suited to mosquito breeding were thoroughly cleared through methods such as burning and burial.
In large bodies of water, fish that preyed on mosquito larvae were released to control their population.
In the East African colony, diseases such as malaria were like a lottery, selecting the unlucky among the immigrants. Fortunately, quinine had already appeared in this era.
Ernst had also specifically introduced Cinchona tree seeds from South America and cultivated them in suitable parts of East Africa, along with various traditional Chinese medicinal herbs.
Western medicine was still rather mystical at present and had not fully matured. Bloodletting remained the mainstream treatment of contemporary doctors. In 1833 alone, France still imported more than forty million leeches.
Fortunately, more and more scholars had begun to question and oppose the theories of traditional Western medicine. Ernst was living in an era of transition from traditional Western medicine to modern medicine.
The nineteenth century was an era in which Western medicine entered a period of rapid development. Merck (United States) in 1816, Pfizer (United States) in 1849, Novartis (Switzerland) in 1859, Bayer (Germany) in 1863, Glaxo (Britain) in 1873, SmithKline (Britain) in 1875, Abbott (United States) in 1888, Roche (Switzerland) in 1896, and other Western medicine companies were established one after another, ushering humanity into the age of Western medicine.
There was no denying that countless crystallizations of medical wisdom might be bursting forth in certain European and American medical laboratories at this very moment, and would completely replace traditional medicine over the coming decades.
But this process was a long one. Only in the twentieth century would the great edifice of modern medicine be fully erected.
Though cutting-edge medicine was advancing by leaps and bounds, mainstream clinical medicine in this era remained in the hands of those traditional "old Western doctors."
These "old Western doctors," not yet eliminated, still understood disease, bacteria, and viruses as people had in the previous era. Surgery had no anesthesia, nor any concept of hemostasis or disinfection. Thus, outrageous medical accidents often occurred.
Ernst did not dare gamble his luck with them, so tried-and-tested remedies with fewer side effects were more reassuring.
Besides obtaining local herbal medicines from the indigenous people of the East African mainland, he also searched traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine for mature, reliable drugs.
For example, quinine, sweet wormwood, and other medicines effective against malaria. Ernst was not a medical student and did not understand how these medicines should be processed.
But having medicine on hand was better than having none. If colonial immigrants unfortunately contracted malaria,
they could only boil these two ingredients in water and drink it. It was not that he did not want to use extracted medicines, but the cost was too high. The colony was so large and its population was not small; expenses in every area were considerable. Growing medicinal plants, meanwhile, entailed virtually no extra cost beyond labor.
The land was readily available. So long as the environment was suitable, they could plant as much as they wished, whereas ordering medicine from Europe was far more expensive.
For now, the most effective means of preventing and controlling infectious diseases in the East African colony was still isolation. Once a problem was discovered, the patient would be isolated separately.
Those with strong immunity might pull through. Those who could not would only die in agony.
Ernst had naturally purchased some medicines as well, but due to transportation constraints, most of them were in the Upper Coastal Region nearest to the seaports.
The interior lagged behind in supplies and medicine, which required colonial settlements inland to display greater initiative than those in the Upper Coastal Region.
They had to organize more immigrants to conduct sanitation campaigns, centrally plan and manage garbage and excrement, eliminate mosquito habitats, and plant mosquito-repelling plants—East Africa was a source of pyrethrum...
They had to prevent the spread of infectious diseases to the greatest possible extent. In this era, the East African colony's immigrants could be said to possess a world-leading concept of sanitation.
They might not know what sanitation was, but they knew that their superiors required them not to throw rubbish about carelessly, eat indiscriminately, or relieve themselves wherever they pleased...
These rules were forcibly enforced by the colonial administration. Otherwise, violators would receive severe punishment.
The colonial administration itself did not actually possess much awareness of sanitation, but Ernst forced the colony to follow his instructions. Moreover, Ernst declared with righteous solemnity to the colonial administration that these were all conclusions reached by European experts.
Whether colonial officials believed it or not, after doing as Ernst said, disease in the East African colony was indeed kept within a low range.
Compared with the colonies of other nations, the results were striking—better even than in certain thoroughly developed regions and countries, such as neighboring Mozambique and India in South Asia.
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