Pandemics

102 years ago, when the so-called “Spanish Flu” arrived in South Africa, there was no national health department, and no official guidance on what to do. By mid-October the death rate was so high that town councils decided to close cinemas and schools. Some schools, such as Benoni Central School, Vogelfontein school in Boksburg, and the Springs government school were converted into emergency hospitals to treat the overflow of patients who could not be accommodated in official hospitals. Between 1st October and 23rd November 1918, more than 306 Boksburg residents died either directly from the flu or from pneumonia that developed as a complication of the flu.

Spanish Flu caused similar devastation all over South Africa. At the height of the epidemic in October 1918, gravediggers in Cape Town could not dig graves fast enough. When the supply of coffins in Cape Town ran out, carpenters at the Railway Workshops in Salt River were called on to make emergency coffins from raw, unseasoned wood. Each day a special funeral train left Cape Town station for Maitland cemetery, loaded with the bodies of flu victims and mourners from friends and family.

Just as is the case with Covid-19, nurses, doctors and volunteers who cared for the sick in 1918 had a high chance of themselves falling victim to the virus. This is the story of some of the health care workers who succumbed to “Spanish Flu”.

Dr. Howard Charles Spaulding came from the small Illinois coal mining town of Virden in...

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