Staying Healthy In South Africa In The 1900s Was Not Easy!

That is how an operating theatre looked like at Johannesburg General Hospital in South Africa around 1902. 

Remarkable is that natural light from the glass ceiling panels was used at the time.

Early anesthetic devices consisting of a mask and a bottle of chloroform like the one in the picture helped patients during operations. Today we can still see them in museums.

But the general state of health in South Africa in the late 1800s and early 1900s was not good. The Bubonic Plague caused great devastation amongst the population in South Africa in 1901. 

Free inoculation campaigns were administered by the many municipalities.

In the picture workers getting vaccinated.

It was generally believed that smoking offered a great protection against the plague. 

An advertisement in 1901 published in the Cape Times in 1901 stated: "It is generally accepted fact that smoking is  a great protection from the plague. That being said the public are strongly advised to smoke Taddy's Myrtle Grove Cigarettes." 

The Iron Lung was developed in the 1920s.  

An iron lung is a type of negative pressure ventilator which encloses most of a person's body and varies air pressure in the enclosed space to stimulate breathing.

In the photo we see a notice from the Stellenbosch municipality dated 17th of April in 1901 letting residents know that there will be gratis inoculation against the Bubonic Plague on Mondays and Thursdays at the Masonic Hotel.

Not long after the Bubonic Plague had claimed its victims in South Africa and a new challenge appeared on the horizon which brought the poorly developed South African health system to its knees. 

After the Bubonic Plague the "Plague of the Spanish Lady" followed. The first case of the Spanish Influenza was reported in South Africa in Durban on the 14 September 1918. The total population of South Africa was just over 6 million people at the time.

2.6 million of the 6 million contracted the Spanish Influenza and within a few weeks more than 130.000 people had died. At first mainly port and larger towns were affected but soon it spread rapidly.

Like the recent Covid epidemy that has shaken our world, factories and shops closed in South Africa. Public transport was only operated sporadically and soon hospitals were overflowing, doctors collapsed from exhaustion and the dead were buried in mass graves because the supply of coffins ran out.

Men were more frequently affected than women, mostly the age group between 25 to 45 and many of them never saw a doctor and were never treated. 

"Take a good dose of Epsom Salts" was the advice given at the time to the ones who had contracted the disease.

The kiss of the Spanish Lady claimed nearly 140 000 victims South Africa and of them 127 000 were black.

The General Hospital in in Johannesburg in 1896. It was opened in 1890 and the opening was attended by more than 4000 people.

The Johannesburg Hospital Complex around 1986!

A full page advertisement for the Caledon Baths was published in the Magazine " Motoring in South Africa" in 1912. The resort featured over 100 bedrooms and had a concert hall. It offered hot and cold mineral baths. 

In the picture a nurse of the General Hospital in Johannesburg  in her uniform around the 1900s. There were not many hospitals in South Africa during that time period but one of the best known hospitals was the Kimberley Hospital established in 1882 by the amalgamation of the Diggers and Carnarvon hospitals.

Its matron Henrietta Stockdale established in 1879 the first training school for nurses and midwives in the country. She was also responsible for establishing 1891 the first registry of nurses in the world. 

Pictures Credit to Reader's Digest