South African War (Boer War) in the Karoo

Epidemic of 'Karoo-itis'

A strange epidemic occurred among staff at the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein, reported senior surgeon Alfred Fripp in the British Medical Journal of July 30, 1900. Doctors termed it “karoo-itis” and mostly it surfaced among newcomers from England. The latest contingent, he said had just presented with exactly the same symptoms as the initial batch of staff showed when they first arrived. “The disease affects people serving in a wide area in the arid central zone of South Africa. One of its many causes seems to be the extremely hot weather, but fortunately since it is now winter, it seems to have disappeared.” Doctors at Deelfontein, said Fripp had compared notes with colleagues at other places such as De Aar, in their efforts to isolate and exclude some of the symptoms. “We have some theories,” he writes, but he did not detail them. He added:“Perhaps we shall soon arrive at a true explanation of its cause, and then I hope we will know how to prevent the distressing symptoms. At present we simply do not know what to do.”

A menagerie to entertain patients

One unusual aspect of the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Deelfontein in the Karoo, was that it had a menagerie for the entertainment, amusement and instruction of the sick and wounded men. Specimens were collected by principal medical officer, Colonel Sloggett and two taxidermists from the British Museum, who had been sent to the hospital to be treated for typhoid fever. They were E C H Seimund and C H B Grant, both members of Yeomany regiments, and other members of the medical team who also found the veld creatures and abundant bird life of the area fascinating. An article in The Ibis, No 13, dated January, 1902, states that for its very interesting collection of South African birds the British museum is indebted to Colonel A T Sloggett who, while serving at the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital during the Anglo-Boer War, sent them information and specimens. The actual collection, says the article, was made by two of the museum’s taxidermists who served as troopers in the Yeomanry and who helped Colonel Sloggett compile the collection At the conclusion of the war most of the animals were sent to the Zoological Gardens in London. The trio presented a fine collection of preserved material to the British Museum. This collection included about 830 bird specimens and their eggs. “Forty bird species were recorded in the Deelfontein area from 1901 to1902,” state Sue Milton and Richard Dean in an article in the October 1, 2008 Journal of African Ornithology.

Dinner salutes war effort

St. Mary's Hospital annual dinner at the Whitehall Rooms of the Metropole Hotel in London, on October 3, 1901, was as usual a grand affair. Guests included 24 St. Mary's doctors as well as several other medical men recently returned from service in the South African War. In total there were almost 200 guests and in a characteristic colourful speech Edmund Owen, acknowledged the country’s debt to those who had served abroad and paid an eloquent tribute to those who had fallen. Thanks were returned by Wallace Ashdowne, a surgeon who had just returned from service with the Imperial Yeomanry Base Hospital, at Deelfontein in the Karoo. It was a most successful evening, and one of the most interesting dinners given by the hospital, said an article in the British Medical Journal of October 1901.

Two strikes to the grim reaper

Many countries and Red Cross type organisations sent equipment and personnel to South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War. Among these was a group of Scots from Edinburgh who collected £12 000 to establish and staff a hospital, writes professor J C (Kay) de Villiers in Healers, Helpers and Hospitals. Personnel embarked on the SS Briton which arrived at in Cape Town on April 10, 1900. There was no transport to take them northwards, so they did not disembark, but sailed on to Port Elizabeth. There they found no suitable accommodation for the nurses, so on May 17, 1900, these women were sent on to Noupoort in the Karoo where they joined the No26 General Hospital. Tragedy struck three weeks after they arrived. Sister Mary Boyd, the sister of physician Dr Francis D Boyd, was struck down by dysentery. Nothing could be done to help her and she died four months later. One of the orderlies, William Dick, also died of typhoid.

A trat scheduled for next year

Anglo Boer War enthusiasts will be delighted to learn that Taffy and David Shearing are in the process of completing their “rebel list”. They have been working on this project for 50 years. “Taffy got the name of the first rebel when we were engaged!” says David. Tracing 15435 rebels and their stories has been a labour of love, so they have decided to publish this list to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary next year. This promises to be a publication worth waiting for.

Round up solves a riddle

Boer War researcher Allen Duff recently visited the graves in Laingsburg and was faced with a puzzle. The inscription on the grave of Private F Gardner, of the 5th Royal Warwickshire Regiment, stated: “Accidentally killed in the execution of his duty on 9.01.1902.” Allen wondered just how Private Gardener could have been ‘accidentally’ killed’ then he remembered Round-up and rushed to his files. There he found a story quoting a letter written by Lieutenant Austin of C Company, Fifth Warwickshire Field Force, while stationed in Laingsburg. On January 13, 1902, Austin wrote: “The men are ready to blaze away at anything at night, so I sing out ‘friend’ when doing my rounds. We had a man killed at Laingsburg on Thursday, they mistook him for the enemy. Raw militia are beauties, but these men are improving, thanks to me, of course.” So there was the explanation of how poor Private F Gardner met his death and the riddle was solved!

Aching with lonlliness

In the same letter Lt Austin mentioned suffering from intense loneliness “I am in charge of a blockhouse with twenty men to guard a bridge 200 miles from Cape Town. Our HQ is at Worcester, a long way off, so I am my own master here. I have no troubles, except it is awfully lonely.” “It seems he was the man that Emily Hobhouse met,” said Allen. In Boer War Letters she describes her trip from Kimberley (April 18 – 19, 1902) and states: “The journey was tedious and now autumn had come the nights were cold in the train. There stands out in my mind a bare spot where the eye swept the horizon in vain for even a tree and no human creature was in sight, where I talked with a Tommy almost mad with the aching solitude around him. He poured out his feelings: (accustomed to town life) he found himself in this – to him – torturing silence. He said he had been out for months and had never seen an enemy but felt he was going out of his mind with loneliness and lack of employment. I gave him my novel to read – it was a Dickens – and such papers as I had and suggested collecting strange flowers and insects, or tilling the ground. We crawled away and left him on the silent veld. What is it Kipling wrote of these boys? ‘Few, forgotten and lonely, Where the white car-windows shine, No, not combatants only, Details guarding the line, Out of the darkness we reach, For a handful of week-old papers, And a mouthful of human speech....”

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