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This study uncovers the lack of eponyms for indigenous doctors in tropical Africa, highlighting colonial influences and vernacular disease names.
Eponyms have been adopted in medicine to honour pioneering doctors who perceived previously unrecognised entities in medical science. There is a curious absence of eponyms for indigenous doctors and patients owning it in tropical Africa. A historical explanation might be the bigotry of colonialism and a colour-bar psyche which unreasonably precluded diversity in medical education in the past. Nevertheless, there are several toponyms with vernacular etymology for African diseases. The achievements of Zambian medico-political avant-gardists have not been adequately highlighted in the medical literature.
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Patel et al. (2024) studied this question.
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