“In my years as Professor of Surgery at Wits, I have become aware of a disproportionately large number of students, doctors and academics associated with Wits Medical School who were educated at St John’s College. I have come to suspect that there is a St John’s Medical Mafia at work.”
In his address to the College in December 1978, renowned surgeon and then Vice-Chancellor of Wits University, Prof DJ “Sonny” du Plessis, tongue firmly in his cheek, coined the term “the St John’s Medical Mafia”, referring to an incredible production line of Old Johannian medical doctors that has continued, remarkable not only in its number but for its impact on the field of medicine.
Pioneers
The name Isidore Jack Block will probably not mean much to either Johannians or Johannesburgers. Born in 1893, Isidore matriculated from St John’s College in 1909 before leaving for Edinburgh to study medicine. He was the first Johannian medical graduate, specialised as a surgeon and practised at the Hospital for Women, Soho Square, London, Chalmers Hospital in Edinburgh, and Queen's Hospital in Birmingham, before settling in Johannesburg. He was a Member of the Honorary Visiting Staff at Johannesburg Hospital, and a lecturer in Clinical Medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand. One might therefore regard him as the first “mafioso”.
Revil John Mason died on 23 August 2020 at the age of 91 years, scarcely a year after receiving the Golden Eagle award on Gaudy Day at St John’s College in 2019. Revil was born on 10 February 1929 and grew up in Saxonwold. He entered St John’s Prep in 1936. After matriculating in 1946, Revil studied at the University of Witwatersrand and obtained a B Com. degree, garnering several prizes, including the Aitken medal for the best graduate in Commerce, together with the Chamber of Industries medal and the Dean’s award.
St John's College (The Heritage Portal)
Wits Great Hall (The Heritage Portal)
However, after attending a lecture by Prof Dart he became fascinated by archaeology and proceeded to study Archaeology at the University of Cape Town where he again excelled in his studies and obtained a doctorate at the age of 28 years old. At the young age of 24 years he successfully excavated Makapansgat, discerning three layers of the Stone Age, a new discovery in South African Archaeology. During the 1950s he often visited St John’s, talking to the boys about new archaeological...
In 1920, St John’s College was still in its infancy. The school had been established in 1898 as a parish school of St Mary’s Anglican Church in downtown Johannesburg. Soon afterwards, the social upheaval caused by the Anglo-Boer South African War (1899-1902) – including the evacuation of many civilians from Johannesburg and the deportation of the school’s headmaster by the Boer authorities – had necessitated the closure of the school for some eighteen months.
After the War, enrolment figures had initially recovered quickly. However, the subsequent advent of the ‘Milner schools’ posed a mortal threat to private church schools such as St John’s. The ‘Milner schools’, heavily subsidised by the colonial government, offered better facilities and lower fees than St John’s. At the time, St John’s was located in the unassuming ‘Tin Temple’, constructed of wood and corrugated iron, in the vicinity of the present-day Noord Street taxi rank. The school had no playing fields.
Unable to compete with the better-resourced government schools in difficult economic times, St John’s College’s enrolment figures declined rapidly. By 1905, only forty-odd boys remained in the school, which was soon in substantial debt. The parish church, unable to sustain the school, handed it over to the Anglican diocese. Thus, St John’s became a diocesan school. But the general consensus was that the school was a ‘sinking ship’. Closure seemed imminent and inevitable.
As a measure of last resort, Archdeacon Michael Furse, who was the chairman of the College Council, requested the Community of the Resurrection to take charge of the school. The Community of...
Contrary to popular belief, the ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918 (which is thought to have caused as many as 50 million deaths globally) did not originate in Spain. Historians and epidemiologists are uncertain about the origins of the disease, which killed more people than had perished in the First World War, which was in its final phase when the pandemic struck. Various hypotheses have been advanced to explain the origins and spread of the 1918 flu. For example, it has been posited that the disease originated in military camps in France, the United Kingdom or the United States of America, or among labourers brought from China to the USA via Canada.
The misconception that the disease originated in Spain arose from the relative absence of press restrictions in Spain, which was a neutral power in the War, with the result that information about the spread of the disease in Spain was generally available. By contrast, the belligerent nations suppressed press reporting on the impact of the disease in their own countries, so as to maintain civilian morale in the final traumatic months of the War. Whatever the origins of the ‘Spanish’ flu, it struck in three waves (March 1918, September-November 1918, and early in 1919) and eventually caused acute illness in about 30% of the world’s population.
South Africa was one of the countries affected most severely by the ‘Spanish’ flu. The disease was brought here by South African soldiers who were being repatriated from France and Belgium towards the end of the War. It seems some...
