THE DISTINGUISHED German medical historian Dr. K. F. Schaller recently remarked that "because of its geographical position" Ethiopia "in former times ... remained mostly unaffected by the world-wide influenza epidemics."' This statement would seem to require revision, for though documentation on Ethiopia's medical history is fragmentary, and many of the epidemics which appeared in the past2 cannot be identified, there is evidence to suggest that diseases of the influenza variety have been known for at least a quarter of a millennium, and that at least some epidemics coincided with international outbreaks.
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Richard Pankhurst (1977) studied this question.