The great flu epidemic
2008-10-09
Marguerite Lombard
COLDS and flu are no laughing matter. August 1918, 90 years ago, marked the start of one of the greatest flu epidemics the world has ever known.
Historians believe about twenty million people died that year.
It decimated the armies in Europe and effectively brought World War I to a close in November 1918.
The first cases of the virus were reported in Durban on 14 September 1918, then in Kimberley on the 23rd.
Two days later Cape Town and Johannesburg too reported cases of the “Spanish Influenza” as it became known. Within weeks half of the South African population had been infected, and by the end of October 140 000 people - mostly working men - had died. Not women and children as one would have expected.
The impact on the economy was swift and devastating.
Mining companies like De Beers closed down. So did factories.
Shopkeepers and groceries ran out of goods. If the baker became ill, there was no bread. If the farmer could not deliver vegetables and milk, there was no vegetables and milk.
Food became scarce. The entire transport system ground to a halt. The railways barely managed on a skeleton staff, and motors were hard pressed to find petrol to put in the cars.
The pattern of infection was predictable and similar throughout the world.
Troupes, refugees and travellers introduced the virus to new hosts when they disembarked at local harbours, and from there the virus used the transport routes to spread to smaller towns and cities.
An article in the Paarl Post, dated 19 October 1918, speculated that the virus could have been introduced by the troupe carrier Faraslav.
The steam ship had docked in Table Bay harbour on 13 September and had sick troops on board.
Flu symptoms were typically a headache, sore throat and a rising temperature.
Doctors then did not have access to the array of medication we have today, and although quinine was widely used to treat the sick, many more people resorted to home remedies.
Newspapers suggested remedies such as cinnamon and lemon juice in hot water before going to bed.
In the country districts people steeped the young shoots of the renosterbos in wine or brandy, gargled with a similar preparation of wilde als.
Some people chewed eucalyptus leaves. Mothers made garlic pouches for their children to hang around their necks to ward off the virus.
The virus was deadly and spread rapidly.
Within days hospitals were congested with the sick and dying, and doctors struggled to cope with the flood of patients.
The dead could not be buried fast enough.
In Cape Town’s Maitland Cemetery hundreds of people were buried every day. Morgues became so full they had to be closed.
Funeral homes ran out of coffins and many of the less fortunate were simply buried in mass graves.
By October, communities began to mobilise relief efforts and placed advertisements in local newspapers asking for volunteers. One of their first efforts was to address the shortage of food.
Soup kitchens were opened at Paarl Station, Market Square (in front of the Paarl town hall), and on Van der Poel’s Square. There the sick and destitute could get free medicine, soup and milk.
Lena Jacobs worked for a family on a farm in Suider Paarl and she recalled in a taped interview at the Drakenstein Heemkring, that every morning she would collect free soup at the factory - most likely H Jones & Co near Paarl Station - for the sick workers.
Prominent people in the community also helped out. Paarl’s mayor, Alf Devine, used his car to collect medication in Cape Town.
Harry Pickstone, one of the pioneers in the deciduous fruit industry, donated crates of lemons.
Many more volunteers walked from door to door to see how families were coping. Children in particular were vulnerable.
The sport stadium was converted into a make-shift hospital
Walter Higgo’s family in Suider Paarl had ten members sick, and when he died, his children became orphans.
People died all the time, and children were buried in drawers, because there were not enough coffins. People were desperate not to fall ill.
Yes indeed, our society is not held together by large institutions and government departments, but by the small every day gestures of kindness and compassion performed by ordinary people.
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