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1918-19 were bad years for most of the Globe. The War in Europe that stretched from 1914 to 1918 saw slaughter on an industrial scale. The battlefiels of Verdun, Somme, Flanders are seared into the collective memory of Europeans and India too was not unaffected as soldiers from India participated in the war and nealry a million lives were lost. It is sad that the commonwealth War Memorial Commission does not regard Indian war graves worth of memoralizing. 1918 saw the gradual return of peace and with it came the deadly Pandemic, known as the Spanish Influenza.
Pandemics have been part of history and the historical record is rich in detail about the impact they have had. The Black Death or the bubonic Plague that raced through Europe in the Fourteenth Century taking nearly a quarter of its population has left iys macabre signature in the child's nursery rhyme: Ringa Ringa Roses, Pocket Full of Poises, Hush Busha WE ALL FALL DOWN. The rash on the skin and the fatal bout of sneeze are sharply brought out. 1918-19 saw the spread of the Influenza Epidemic in India and one of the worst affected places was Madras. The year was also ne that was amrked by large scale social and political disturbances as grain price sharply incresed and surpus grain was shipped off to Europe to feed the every hungry Arimes of the Imperial Powers. It is against this background that we have to evaluate the work of Dr Kaiwar Raghavendra Rao who as the Halth Officer of the Madras Corporation had to oversee the Influenza Campaign as well.
Lady Willingdon, the wife of the Governor of Madras Presidency took keen interest in the affairs of the Corporation and we find Dr Raghavendra Rao thanking her for her assistance to the cause of Public Health. One initiative of the Lady that needs to be highlighted is her interventions in matters relating to Maternal and Child health. Lady Willington took personal interest in the Lying=in Hospitals which was the then contemporary usage for Maternity Hospitals. And at this point a remarkable woman enters the picture: Dr L N Virasinghe-Chinappa, a colleague of Dr Rao who is made the Superindendent of the Maternity Hospitals in Madras now Chennai. Unfortunately, in some of the earlier volumes of the Reports her name is inexplicably given as L Vira Singh. But in 1919 her signature appears alongside that of Dr Raghavendra Rao.
The stress of the Epidemic and the need for a qell equipped diagnostic lab neccisitated the construction of a Laboratory complete with the Clayton's Apparatus which was used apparently for nebulizing sera. Dr Raghvendra Rao writes that 1919 began with " omnious possibilities of sickness and death".By the end of December 1918 itself Plague had started claiming lives in Triplicane and Cholera had spread to the northern part of the city. The disease was notified as an epidemic in January 1919 and it subsided only to be replaced by the Influenza Pandemic by March 1919. The frightful pace at which the Influenza spread, resulted in the formation of a Committee with Dr Lt Col C Donovon IMS as the Chairman and Dr Raghvendra Rao, then Health Officer as the Convener.
The Committee met on the 21st of July 1919 and recommended a series of Public Health Measure to te Government of the Prsidency:
1) Temporary Structures be set up as isolation units Quarintine those affected by the Influenza
2) Requst people to go to the Influenza Homes so that the spread of the disease could be curtailed
3) Requisitioned drugs
For meeting the expenses the Corporation of Madras sanctioned a sum of Rs. 15,000. Public awareness was sought to be increased by printing Influenza Posters both in English and vernacular lnguages which adviced those suffering from the defined symptoms to report to the nearest Infuenza Homes. In just 10 days after the Meeting, the Government notofied Influenza as a "dangerous disease" under the Madras Municipal Act and a GO # 1208 dated 13 August 1919 was passed. Roypuram was chosen as the quarintine zone and we know that it was kept at full capacity as the emigrants bound to South Africa were kept here. Dr Rao took on the challenge of vaccination and spent his energy ensuring that children below the age of 1 year were vaccinated for small pox. Thus, he reduced the morbidity of the disease in Madras which had acquired a dubious fame as the centre of the diseas.
Given the fact that Madras Presidency was the most seriously affected by the Influeza Epidemic second only to Bombay, the eager exwertions of Dr Raghavendra Rao contributed in no small measure in reducing the human toll'
I thank Mrs Sudha Vyas for giving me a photograph f Dr Kaiwar Raghavendra Rao.
1918-19 were bad years for most of the Globe. The War in Europe that stretched from 1914 to 1918 saw slaughter on an industrial scale. The battlefiels of Verdun, Somme, Flanders are seared into the collective memory of Europeans and India too was not unaffected as soldiers from India participated in the war and nealry a million lives were lost. It is sad that the commonwealth War Memorial Commission does not regard Indian war graves worth of memoralizing. 1918 saw the gradual return of peace and with it came the deadly Pandemic, known as the Spanish Influenza.
Pandemics have been part of history and the historical record is rich in detail about the impact they have had. The Black Death or the bubonic Plague that raced through Europe in the Fourteenth Century taking nearly a quarter of its population has left iys macabre signature in the child's nursery rhyme: Ringa Ringa Roses, Pocket Full of Poises, Hush Busha WE ALL FALL DOWN. The rash on the skin and the fatal bout of sneeze are sharply brought out. 1918-19 saw the spread of the Influenza Epidemic in India and one of the worst affected places was Madras. The year was also ne that was amrked by large scale social and political disturbances as grain price sharply incresed and surpus grain was shipped off to Europe to feed the every hungry Arimes of the Imperial Powers. It is against this background that we have to evaluate the work of Dr Kaiwar Raghavendra Rao who as the Halth Officer of the Madras Corporation had to oversee the Influenza Campaign as well.
Lady Willingdon, the wife of the Governor of Madras Presidency took keen interest in the affairs of the Corporation and we find Dr Raghavendra Rao thanking her for her assistance to the cause of Public Health. One initiative of the Lady that needs to be highlighted is her interventions in matters relating to Maternal and Child health. Lady Willington took personal interest in the Lying=in Hospitals which was the then contemporary usage for Maternity Hospitals. And at this point a remarkable woman enters the picture: Dr L N Virasinghe-Chinappa, a colleague of Dr Rao who is made the Superindendent of the Maternity Hospitals in Madras now Chennai. Unfortunately, in some of the earlier volumes of the Reports her name is inexplicably given as L Vira Singh. But in 1919 her signature appears alongside that of Dr Raghavendra Rao.
The stress of the Epidemic and the need for a qell equipped diagnostic lab neccisitated the construction of a Laboratory complete with the Clayton's Apparatus which was used apparently for nebulizing sera. Dr Raghvendra Rao writes that 1919 began with " omnious possibilities of sickness and death".By the end of December 1918 itself Plague had started claiming lives in Triplicane and Cholera had spread to the northern part of the city. The disease was notified as an epidemic in January 1919 and it subsided only to be replaced by the Influenza Pandemic by March 1919. The frightful pace at which the Influenza spread, resulted in the formation of a Committee with Dr Lt Col C Donovon IMS as the Chairman and Dr Raghvendra Rao, then Health Officer as the Convener.
The Committee met on the 21st of July 1919 and recommended a series of Public Health Measure to te Government of the Prsidency:
1) Temporary Structures be set up as isolation units Quarintine those affected by the Influenza
2) Requst people to go to the Influenza Homes so that the spread of the disease could be curtailed
3) Requisitioned drugs
For meeting the expenses the Corporation of Madras sanctioned a sum of Rs. 15,000. Public awareness was sought to be increased by printing Influenza Posters both in English and vernacular lnguages which adviced those suffering from the defined symptoms to report to the nearest Infuenza Homes. In just 10 days after the Meeting, the Government notofied Influenza as a "dangerous disease" under the Madras Municipal Act and a GO # 1208 dated 13 August 1919 was passed. Roypuram was chosen as the quarintine zone and we know that it was kept at full capacity as the emigrants bound to South Africa were kept here. Dr Rao took on the challenge of vaccination and spent his energy ensuring that children below the age of 1 year were vaccinated for small pox. Thus, he reduced the morbidity of the disease in Madras which had acquired a dubious fame as the centre of the diseas.
Given the fact that Madras Presidency was the most seriously affected by the Influeza Epidemic second only to Bombay, the eager exwertions of Dr Raghavendra Rao contributed in no small measure in reducing the human toll'
I thank Mrs Sudha Vyas for giving me a photograph f Dr Kaiwar Raghavendra Rao.
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