587367

research-article2015
JAS0010.1177/0021909615587367Journal of Asian and African StudiesJimoh

Article
JAAS
Journal of Asian and African Studies
1­–13
Managing Epidemic: The British © The Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permissions:
Approach to 1918–1919 sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0021909615587367
Influenza in Lagos jas.sagepub.com

Jimoh Mufutau Oluwasegun

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract
This paper examines how the British managed the 1918–1919 influenza epidemic in Lagos, the reactions
of the local population to new sanitary and medical policies enforced during the period, and its social and
political implications for future epidemic management in the colony. Unlike several studies which approach
the history of the pandemic from global and national perspectives, a focus on Lagos, the colonial capital of
Nigeria, one of Britain’s most important colonies provides this paper with a rare opportunity to engage
with how local peculiarities informed decisions about the resolution of a global problem. Lagos is chosen
as the terrain for discussion because of the ample data generated about it in the course of the 19th and
20th centuries (not just between European missionaries and the indigenous Lagosians, but also for other
influential cultural and ethnic groups such as the Saro and Amaro (migrants from Brazil), and the Indian
influence on medical policies in Lagos).

Keywords
Lagos, epidemic, influenza, colonialism, medicine

Introduction
The history of the 1918 influenza epidemic has received considerable scholarly attention globally
(Alam, 1978; Arnold, 1988; Brown, 1987; Burnet and White, 1972; Echeverri Dávila, 1993;
Heaton and Falola, 2006; MacLeod and Milton, 2005; Mills, 1986; Mueller, 1995; Patterson, 1983;
Phillips, 1990; Phimister, 1973; Rice, 1988; Tomkins, 1992, 1994) within the context of the ideol-
ogy that underpinned colonial medicine; that is, a situation whereby colonial medicine was pre-
sented as an act of benevolence used by the imperial power to legitimise imperial rule (Alam, 1978;
Arnold, 1988). Even though epidemics provided colonial administrations with political opportuni-
ties to entrench colonial rule, racial segregation and space delineation, as well as a platform for the
experimentation of new ideas defined in metropolitan medical and sanitary schools (MacLeod and
Milton, 2005), the social implications of these ideological standpoints have often been treated as
footnotes to clinical manifestations of diseases. For example, Heaton and Falola (2006), in view of

Corresponding author:
Jimoh Mufutau Oluwasegun, History Department, University of Ibadan, Room 87, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Email: oriyomijimoh4@gmail.com

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

2 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

the socio-cultural peculiarities of epidemics held the view that disease though a global phenome-
non cannot be perceived as a single integrated phenomenon with similar trends in different places,
and argued that epidemic outbreak must be studied within the socio-political context of its society
regardless of its geographical spread.
In the case of the 1918 influenza epidemic, most scholars favour studying the demographic
effects of the pandemic across space and time in Africa, because, essentially, its spread occurred in
phases and the colonial response to its outbreak differs across geographical space. While scholars
like Curtin (1985), Olukoju (1994) and Swanson (1977) have drawn attention to the nexus between
disease control and urban planning in Africa, these studies glossed over the impacts of urban plan-
ning on African means of livelihood and its social implications. Aderinto’s study on the control of
venereal disease in Lagos (Aderinto, 2012), perhaps represents one of the very few attempts by
scholars to look at the social implications of medicine on the people of Lagos; however, his study
was limited in scope and it was gender focused. Arguably, Schram (1972) provides a good back-
ground to epidemiological study in Nigeria, though devoted as the study seems to be to medical
historiography it comes across as a mere chronicle of epochs and a dateline of the medical profes-
sion in Nigeria.
Though some studies have provided a broad picture of the influenza epidemic in British West
Africa and demonstrated how successive colonial governments dealt with the disease, their percep-
tion that the response of the administration followed the same pattern in all colonised territories is
too generalised to be an accurate picture (Patterson, 1983; Tomkins, 1994). Indeed, if many studies
have highlighted how the disease spread across the British imperial space, they failed to note the
role played in making policy decisions by the peculiarity and policy preferences of ‘men on the
spot’. This is true of scholars who have engaged in the study of Lagos during the period of colonial-
ism (Heaton and Falola, 2006); they underplayed the importance of the peculiarity of the sanitary
condition of Lagos at the period leading up to the outbreak. In essence, the impact of the influenza
epidemic on the social formation of Lagos has yet to receive serious attention. The severity of the
epidemic in Lagos and the abundance of literature about it because its importance as the leading
port in British West Africa provide a sound basis for studying both the city and the epidemic in
isolation.
This paper, therefore, seeks to examine how the British managed the 1918–1919 influenza epi-
demic in Lagos, the reactions of the local population to new sanitary and medical policies enforced
during the period, and its social and political implications for future epidemic management in the
colony. Lagos is chosen as the terrain of discussion because of the ample data generated in the
course of the 19th and 20th centuries (not just between European missionaries and the indigenous
Lagosians, but also for other influential cultural and ethnic groups such as the Saro and Amaro
(migrants from Brazil), and the Indian influence on medical policies in Lagos).

Influenza: spread, morbidity and clinical manifestations

The year 1918 was in many ways significant. It marked the end of World War 1 and the beginning
of an outbreak of an influenza pandemic that killed more people than the war. Recent studies have
revealed an estimate fluctuating from 50 to 100 million casualties worldwide (De Almeida, 2013).
It came in phases and encircled the world through increased human mobility, especially via sea
route transportation. It would not be an overstatement to say that if the 1918 influenza was marked
so much in popular minds as the world’s first major pandemic it is precisely because it was, in
many ways, the first major epidemic outbreak; this global spread resulted from the same instru-
ments that had been at the root – or were perceived to be – of the modern globalised world, namely:
the steamship and world trade. No region in the world escaped its devastating effects. From the

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 3

United States it spread speedily to Europe and Asia. By April 1918, Australia was hit. By late
August, completing its imperial ‘grand tour,’ the ‘unwanted visitor’ surfaced in West Africa, prob-
ably first in Sierra Leone and Ghana, later making its way to Lagos. The medical machinery of the
imperial establishment was overwhelmed, and its response was slowed down by a serious lack of
understanding of the influenza (Killingray, 2003). Prior to its appearance in Lagos, the disease had
earlier devastated the British colony of Sierra Leone where it was reported to have claimed the
lives of four per cent of the population (Tomkins, 1994). Sea communication and the volume of
trade and human traffic between the two colonies suggest that the appearance of the influenza in
Lagos would only be a matter of time. This must have prompted the Governor of Sierra Leone to
send a cablegram to the senior sanitary officer of Lagos on 30 August 1918, informing him of the
seriousness of the pandemic in his colony (Tomkins, 1994). He further advised that all ships enter-
ing Lagos, especially those from Britain, should be considered infected (Public Record Office
(PRO), London, 1919). Based on the advice of the sanitary board, the influenza was declared as
infectious on the strength of the Public Health Ordinance of 1917. The rapidity at which it devel-
oped and the severity of its symptoms are graphically described by Killingray:

The virus is transmitted from person to person by the respiratory route, with a short incubation period of
24–27 hours, so that the virus can spread rapidly. In serious cases, the symptoms are bloody sputum,
bleeding from the nose, and lung failure associated with haemorrhagic and oedematous complications.
Influenza does kill directly but frequently, the virus leads to serious bacterial pneumonic complications
which result in death (Killingray, 1983).

Influenza officially hit Lagos on 14 September 1918 (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919).
The medical officer for the colony not only notified the public by public notices in newspapers and
the government gazette, but private medical doctors were also co-opted into the campaign (Public
Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). It is interesting to note that prior to this period, segregation
of the medical profession based on a racial divide was an official policy in Lagos. Most of the
indigenous doctors were refused employment in the colonial medical service. Not surprisingly,
many of them formed the bedrock of the anti-colonial movement in Lagos.
The first human case in Lagos was confirmed on 14 September 1918. Three crew men of the SS
Panayiotis were discovered by Dr Gray, a colonial medical officer, to be seriously ill and lying on
the Iddo wharf opposite the island. The anxiety created by the news of the epidemic and its virulent
features made every illness in Lagos susceptible to being described as influenza. These three crew
men were removed to the infectious disease hospital in Ikoyi after they were diagnosed with the
disease (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). The ship was ‘arrested’ and disinfected by the
sanitary authority and subsequently sent to the pool, the pool was an isolated area where all disin-
fected ships are kept. The rate of the spread and infection in Lagos were rapid and devastating.
The efficiency of imperial transport networks became, in this context, a lethal mechanism of
infection for British West Africa which was intricately connected to the rest of the empire via trade
and sea communication (Collier, 1974; Johnson and Mueller, 2002; Jordan, 1927; Patterson and
Pyle, 1991; Phillips and Killingray, 2003). Ships coming from other parts of the region arrived at
Lagos with sick people on-board. A few minutes after the arrival of the SS Panayiotis, the SS
Ashanti arrived from Sierra Leone with six passengers diagnosed with the influenza; they also
were transferred to a quarantine station. One of these passengers had died aboard before the arrival
of the ship in Lagos. Post-mortem examination confirmed that he died of influenza (Public Record
Office (PRO), London, 1919).
By mid-September, all the merchant ships anchored in Lagos were infected. In fact one of these
ships was credited to have caused the wide spread of the influenza in Lagos. More precisely, SS

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

4 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

Bida was said to have been “the chief means introducing the influenza to Nigeria” (Public Record
Office (PRO), London, 1919). The SS Bida had left the Gold Coast for Nigeria and arrived in
Lagos on the 14 September with two hundred and thirty-nine passengers. The inadequacy and
complacency of the Lagos sanitary control was exposed when all passengers had been let free
without thorough examination and left to disappear and intermix with the local population. They
were speculated to be also the chief carrier of the pandemic in the hinterland. Although the ship
was later quarantined by the sanitary department, the failure of its agents to track the men and
women who had come from the Gold Coast only signalled the deficiency of the system put in place
by the colonial administration (Tomkins, 1994). The complacency of the sanitary officer in charge
of the sea port of Lagos was later confirmed by the Acting Governor of the colony; in his memo to
the British Secretary of State he wrote:

…the master of the S.S. “Bida” was one of the few ships’ captains who brought was also recognised
pilot of the port of Lagos, and, therefore, brought his ship directly alongside the customs Wharf without
usual boarding by one of the official pilots stationed in Lagos, who would, in accordance with
instructions at the time in force, have inquired into the history of the vessels (Public Record Office
(PRO), London, 1919).

The failure to track the ship in accordance with quarantine rules could not be more succinctly
put. More cases of infected passengers who had travelled on the SS Bida were recorded than for
any other ship anchored at Lagos at that time. The following cases were reported and linked to
the ship:

•• A first class customs clerk had been attended (sic) by a native medical officer since 18th
September; he became very ill on the 22nd, and was sent to the Infectious Diseases Hospital
on the 23rd as a case of influenza; he died the same day. On investigation it was found that a
woman was ill in the man’s house on the 15th and that she was a passenger from Secondee
by the S.S. “Bida” she left by train on the house on the 23rd, and was removed to the
Infectious Disease Hospital, all suffering from influenza.
•• A krooman, from the S.S “Bida” was found in the street on the 23rd; he was partly uncon-
scious, and his address in Lagos could not be obtained.
•• On the same day a native who had been a passenger on the S.S “Bida”, a trader from Opobo
•• On the 24th, a Customs Clark, living in the same compound as another Government clerk
and a girl, who are both natives of the Gold Coast. It was declared, though later denied, that
they had been in contact with passenger from the S.S “Bida”.
•• On the same day – 24th – a woman and two children from Elmina (Gold Coast), passenger
by the S.S “Bida” were removed to the Infectious Disease Hospital from the house of a
Custom Clerk.
•• The wife of a Customs Clark was admitted on the 25th; her husband worked in the same as
case the 18th September.
•• The cook of a government official, on the 25th; he lived in a compound which passengers
from S.S. “Bida” were said to have visited.
•• A man and Two children, on the 26th, living next door to a Gold Coast native; the children
had been ill since the 23rd, the man died a day later.
•• A Customs Clark, who worked in the same office as case of 18th September, his sister and
son on the 26th.
•• On the 26th, of September, three more cases were sent to the Infectious Disease Hospital
(Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919).

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 5

September of 1918 was a decisive month for Lagos. The colonial government struggled to con-
trol the infection. From 14 September when the infection was first confirmed in the city, cases
of infection were reported every day from ships coming in from neighbouring colonies (Public
Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). In September the rate of its spread and the rapidity at
which it claimed its victims was unimaginable. The victims cut across the social stratum as
members of all classes were infected by the influenza. Within the first hours of the outbreak, the
medical facilities of the colonial hospital and the infectious disease hospital were overstretched.
Victims were lying on the street, while rescuers also became victims (Public Record Office
(PRO), London, 1919).
Infectious cases from the port were easily tracked and isolated by the sanitary authority. It was
however difficult, if not impossible, to monitor those who were infected away from the ship. The
colonial government noted that it was “quite impossible to curtail the spread of the disease” (Public
Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). The admissibility of the failure of its efforts only confirmed
the idea that the colonial authorities were ill-equipped to deal with the situation. The late admission
of the sanitary officer only serves to corroborates this interpretation: “the disease was widely scat-
tered and that no measure of quarantine was likely to stop its progress” (Public Record Office
(PRO), London, 1919). The port of Lagos and the entire colony were eventually declared infected
on 25 September, and on 26 September an Observation Hospital was opened in Ikoyi as part of the
measures to control the epidemic. People suspected of influenza infection were sent to the hospital
located in the north east of Lagos for close observation. The hospital was to cater for cases that
could not be diagnosed instantly.
It must be noted that both human and material resources of the colonial government were over-
stretched by the epidemic. For instance, the new Observation Hospital at Ikoyi was a Technical
School that had later been converted to a prison before it eventually became an emergency hospital
in reaction to the lack of existing appropriate facilities. Furthermore, the reaction of the colonial
authorities to the epidemic was largely shaped by the medical policy of the government in London,
which was to prevent the disease from spreading rather than providing succour for the victims.
Perhaps, the adoption of such policy was to cut cost, because it was more expensive to provide
relief materials for epidemic victims than to control the epidemic itself (interview by the author
with Murray Last, 12 June 2013). This perhaps reflects the Manchester doctrine of minimal finan-
cial commitment to the colony even when the epidemic threatened the basis of colonialism. The
famous Manchester doctrine was formulated by the colonial government to ensure that colonies are
self sufficient in terms of finance.
The official policy of the British government as recommended by the Local Government Board
was to devise means of containment rather than measures to cure the victims. This recommenda-
tion was explained clearly in a document sent to the overseas colonies during the epidemic by the
local government board. Unfortunately, by the time the mail arrived in Britain’s West African colo-
nies, their cemeteries were already full of the corpses of the influenza’s many victims (Tomkins,
1994). Some scholars have noted that the ‘lacklustre’ response of the British administration was
due to their lack of preparation to combat such an epidemic. These scholars have argued that colo-
nial government was only concerned with tropical diseases insofar as they directly threatened the
existence of the colonial enterprise and its European managers (Tomkins, 1994; Interview by the
author with Dr Hillary, Birkbeck College, University of London, 21 May 2013). Earlier medical
research had essentially been devoted to diseases that were prevalent in the tropics notably, mos-
quito-borne diseases such as malaria, water-borne disease such as the yellow fever and the tuber-
culosis that had for long put the life of sailors and administrators at risk. When the influenza
epidemic finally hit Lagos, the colonial government had therefore no medical understanding of the
disease and no ideas as to how to combat and prevent it.

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

6 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

Date Native European Total Native European Total

cases and other cases certified and other certified
reported non-native reported deaths non- deaths
cases Native
deaths
1th 6 6 12 _ __ __
2th 86 2 88 _ __ __
3th 88 3 91 1 __ 1
4th 84 6 90 1 __ 1
5th 55 8 63 1 __ 1
6th 25 3 28 3 __ 3
7th 127 10 137 7 __ 7
8th 91 25 116 2 __ 2
9th 159 22 181 5 1 6
10th 358 6 364 12 __ 12
11th 133 9 142 10 __ 10
12th 133 __ 133 15 __ 15
13th 3 12 15 12 __ 12
14th 42 7 49 17 __ 17
15th 199 2 201 18 __ 18
16th 238 15 253 22 1 28
17th 98 3 101 13 _ 13
18th 87 7 94 11 2 13
19th 71 3 74 7 1 8
20th 43 3 46 4 _ 4
20th 45 2 47 15 1 16
22th 84 __ 84 4 _ 4
23th 91 __ 91 9 _ 9
24th 57 __ 57 6 1 7
25th 58 __ 58 4 __ 4
26th 33 __ 33 5 __ 5
27th __ 2 2 4 __ 4
28th 53 3 56 5 __ 5
29th 35 __ 35 3 __ 3
30th 30 __ 80 3 __ 3
31th 12 __ 12 4 __ 4
Total 2,624 159 2,783 223 7 230
September 71 2 73 3 __ 3
November 111 5 116 17 __ 17
Total 2,806 116 2,972 243 7 250

Figure 1.  Reported cases of influenza and deaths certified as due to influenza in October 1918 in the
Township of Lagos.
Source: Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919.

In the first two months of the outbreak the enormity of the casualties was overwhelming.
Figure 1 shows the number of infected people and the deaths recorded in the first two months of
the outbreak.

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 7

Figure 1 does not represent the total number of infections from Lagos; rather it represents the num-
ber of cases reported at the port. For example, in contrast to figures shown in Figure 1, the number of
deaths registered for the month of October only show that over 1,602 individuals died of the influenza
(Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). In the same month, the number of uncertified deaths
adduced to the influenza was 690 (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). Following the out-
break and the dramatic number of the casualties, the panic induced by the fear of the disease resulted
in massive migration as people fled Lagos by roads and water. Those who fled by water were detained
for medical examination by the colonial government, while it became impossible for the colonial gov-
ernment to halt the exodus of the people from the colony who left by land – a majority of those who
left were reported to have died of the influenza (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). Within
the four months that the epidemic ravaged the colony, the medical department gave what it called a
‘moderate figure’ of 1,200 deaths. The breakdown shows that in the month of September, three people
succumbed to the influenza, the month of October recorded the largest number of casualties, (1,062),
November recorded 17 casualties, and during December and the whole of 1919 there were only eight
casualties recorded. While the number of uncertified deaths was put at 110, in all, 1,200 people died of
the epidemic according to the colonial record (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). From the
figure above, Lagos lost 1.5% of its population to the epidemic as its official population was put at
81,941 (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). The figure given by the colonial government
nevertheless is grossly inaccurate as it did not include those who died in their homes and whose deaths
were not reported to the sanitary officer. Also, this figure does not include minors whose deaths were
not reported to the authorities because these deaths were considered as abnormal in the dominant
South Western Nigerian Yoruba culture. Such corpses were removed to the bush in the night in line
with Yoruba tradition. Many of the victims of the pandemic concealed their identity and those who
died of the influenza were concealed by their immediate family.
The diagnosis of the influenza unleashed an unprecedented panic which impacted on the entire
community during the outbreak with disastrous effects such that the fear of being sent to an infec-
tious diseases hospital and being isolated from their family prompted individuals to conceal from
their relatives victims of the influenza.

Colonial response to influenza in Lagos, 1918–1919

The imperial colonial enterprise in Africa was directly linked to the advancement of medicine. In
the first hundred years of colonial enterprise, diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, yellow fever, cow
disease, dysentery and black water disease threatened the foundation of the developing African
colonies. Faced with this quagmire, many colonial governments established medical schools to
research vaccines and solutions to tropical diseases with the clear and undisputed objective to
make tropical regions more accessible to economic explorers and missionaries. By the 1890s the
London School of Hygienic and Tropical Medicine had demystified malaria by identifying the car-
rier of the parasite. The result of this discovery was the institutionalisation of racial segregation
recommended as a panacea to the mosquito menace (Ross, 1910). In Lagos, the colonial govern-
ment under Governor Macgregor, rebuffed attempts by the British government to introduce such
policy into the colony. His argument was predicated on the fact that such policy would inevitably
lead to racial antagonism. In Lagos, contrarily to other colonies such as South Africa, Ghana and
Sierra Leone for example, to combat malaria, the colonial government embarked on an ambitious
policy of land reclamation and draining of swamps, and introducing simultaneously, sanitary meas-
ures to improve the sanitary state of the colony.
However, the outbreak of the influenza in 1918 caught the colonial government by surprise.
They were slow in response, and when they eventually responded, it was quite ineffective. The

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

8 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

pandemic was not a tropical disease; it was imported to the continent through trade and sea com-
munication. In British West Africa, directives were issued to local medical and sanitary officers by
civil servants based thousands of kilometres away in the Colonial Office in London.
In Lagos, however, the response of the colonial authority was dictated by the prevailing circum-
stances rather than the regional pattern of the British colonies. At the outbreak of the epidemic, the
director of medical and sanitary services, Dr Hood, CMG, convened meetings with the senior staff of
the colony, unofficial and official medical practitioners with the objective of discussing the epidemic
(Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). The first meeting took place on 24 September and a
second meeting followed on 7 October. The significance of these meetings lies in the fact that the
crisis bridged the racial divide in medicine in Lagos. Indigenous medical practitioners were called in
because of the suspicion that pervaded western medical intervention. Before then, the African medi-
cal practitioners were not given opportunity within the colonial medical service because of the racial
policy of the Colonial Office. At the meeting, two native medical practitioners submitted a draft that
contained the aetiology of the disease and also suggested ways in which the problem could be abated.
The content of this draft revealed that the initial relative success recorded by the colonial government
was actually the result of remedial measures suggested by the ‘native’ doctors. Three categories of
measures were outlined in the colonial report. Firstly, “when vessels were infected, but the shore was
free, measures were directed to the prevention of importing the disease. Secondly, when Lagos was
infected, as well as ships; measures were taken to prevent the spread from Lagos to other ports and
places. Thirdly, when Nigeria was infected as a whole and ships were either clean or heavily or mod-
erately infected, action was taken to prevent infection of clean ships, to prevent importation from
heavily infected ships, with the intention of excluding a more virulent organism if such there were:
whilst no action was taken with regard to moderately infected ships, such being regarded as infected
equally with shore” (sic) (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919).
These preventive measures were accepted by the colonial authorities, printed and circulated in
Yoruba and English languages within Lagos and its environs. However, broader measures were
taken to halt the spread and prevent panic in neighbouring towns and communities. It was a crisis
that could not be contained alone by the medical establishment. The intervention of the Church was
sought to persuade the people to obey sanitary regulations and co-operate with the medical offic-
ers. While the epidemic raged, the colonial government was conscious of its economic implica-
tions for the Lagos colony and the colonial enterprise in Nigeria. To safeguard the economic lifeline
of the colony, the medical officer warned that “it was necessary to interfere as little as possible with
shipping and to prevent a panic in the neighbouring towns and villages upon which the food supply
of Lagos depends” (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919). Ships suspected of infection
were not allowed to anchor with other ships in the port as such ships were anchored in the ‘pool’
under quarantine conditions. To cater for those who had been infected from the ships, arrangements
were made at quarantine stations. According to the medical department:

Removing contacts from the ships and shore to the quarantine station, so long as this measure gave any
hope of being of service. From ocean ships this applied as a rule to passenger only, as the ships with crews
were usually kept isolated so long as they were considered infected, or until they sailed. (Public Record
Office (PRO), London, 1919).

In an extraordinary measure, the marine department arranged a ferry service between Lagos and
the offshore station to provide food for those who were detained offshore. Those who had been
certified by the medical team to be carriers of the influenza were temporarily sheltered in emer-
gency shelters erected close to the port for onward transfer to the quarantine station, and later to the
disease hospital at the Ikoyi end of Lagos.

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 9

Furthermore, ships and houses were sprayed with sulphur fumigation and with solution of the
cyllin disinfectant. The process was discontinued at one point by the medical and sanitary depart-
ment chiefly because of shortage of the disinfectant and shortage of labour (Public Record Office
(PRO), London, 1919). The shortage of labour was connected to the fact that the spraying gang
employed for the colony abandoned the job because most of them contracted the disease and ran
away so as not be sent to quarantine or disease hospital. This scenario was reduced to a common
joke among the people: Owo re, ikure, oyinbo pe e ko wa gba (here is money, here is death, the
white man is calling you to come and take) (interview by the author with Mama Akingbola, age 96,
30 April 2013 – her mother died of the disease). House to house inspection was carried out by the
health gang and people found to be infected were removed to the Observation Hospital or isolation
camp in Ikoyi. The first visit to people’s residences was carried out on 18 September by the sani-
tary inspector, with the aim of carrying out discrete enquiries about infectious patients. This meas-
ure yielded an astonishing result as people were found to be concealing the information and also
suffering from other disease (The African Messenger, 1922).
The severity of the disease in Lagos was underlined by these extraordinary measures. Schools
and churches, cinemas and mosques were closed and all public meetings prohibited by the govern-
ment. The severity of the situation was succinctly captured by The African Messenger in an article
dated 9 March, 1922:

…the mortality while the epidemic lasted was so high that there seemed to have been one continuous
stream of funeral procession day in day out. The energies of ministers of religion as well as grave-diggers,
not to talk of undertakers, were taxed almost to breaking point in order to cope with the demands that were
being made on their services (The African Messenger, 1922).

To combat the epidemic, the medical authorities in Lagos invoked the provision of the Health
Ordinance of 1917. The influenza was declared as an infectious disease through public notice. The
legal recognition of the epidemic provided the colonial state with the mandate to intrude forcefully
and sometimes aggressively into the private houses of people; this was unprecedented in Lagos.
The effect of these intrusions nevertheless created further panic among Lagosians resulting in a
wave of discrete escapes to the hinterland by sick people, thereby spreading the influenza. By
implication, the epidemic ushered in legal control in what Arnold (1988) refers to as ‘colonising
the body’. Under this regime of medicalisation of the body, people could now be detained and put
under forced medical regulation.
Further control measures were inaugurated. Due to acute shortage of manpower, the medical
department dispatched a circular to all government departments, including the West African Royal
Force, requesting for volunteers to help in the house to house visits (The African Messenger, 1922).
People across the class and racial divides responded to this call and visitation gangs were formed.
The results of this appeal are shown Figure 2.

Local reactions to influenza control in Lagos

One of the factors that would undermine the government efforts in combating the influenza was the
attitudes of the people to measures taken by the colonial government. The news of human casual-
ties due to the epidemic led to serious panic among the people of Lagos. However, a major source
of panic among the people was the newly introduced house-to-house visits. These visits were
objected to by some Lagosians because members of the community believed that it would under-
mine their privacy. It caused massive social and economic dislocation as the people began to run
out of Lagos, while those who could not leave concealed their sickness. Their greatest fear was that

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

10 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

Number of Total replies Replies Total number

Circular received. indicating of Volunteers.
sent. willingness to
assist.
Civil 18 9 5 29
Government
Departments
Commanding 2 2 1 1
Officers
Europeans 36 11 7 11
Firm
Europeans 3 2 2 2
Mission
Total 59 24 15 43

Figure 2.  Circular Ccalling for volunteers.

Source: Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919.

colonial officers might take advantage of the exercise to witch hunt the masses. In order to reverse
the attitude of the people, the government offered to organise the whole of the house-to-house
visits by natives, working in conjunction and under the direction of the sanitary authority (Public
Record Office (PRO), London, 1919)
On 7 October, a general meeting was convened in Lagos where Dr Foy, Senior Sanitary Officer,
Dr Beringer and Dr Obassa, a native medical practitioner, addressed the people on the need to
allow the house-to-house visits. The support of Mr Kitoyi Ajasa was solicited by the government
to use his newspaper to publicise the scheme; this is evident from studying The Nigerian Pioneer
from 1918–1919. It devoted more space to the epidemic than any other news medium in the colony.
Though there were two leading newspapers in the colony during this period, the Lagos Weekly
Record owned and controlled by Mr Macaulay (‘the Lion of Kerstin Hall’), devoted much of its
pages to the issues of Eleko removal and the Apapa land case (Lawal and Jimoh, 2012). After much
publicity made by the government by means of press reports and advertisement, more natives
became sympathetic with the government attempts at controlling the disease and volunteered to
assist them in their action. In all, there were 98 volunteers made up of 24 Europeans, 35 Natives
and 29 Sanitary Inspectors (Public Record Office (PRO), London, 1919).
Despite the collaboration between the elite, some local elites objected to the house-to-house
visits. However, the government continued with the scheme which was later marred by shortage of
manpower and facilities as the crisis escalated. At the peak of the crisis, an Observation Hospital
was built where those who were arrested and detained under the Health Ordinance of 1917 were
kept. Medical facilities were so overstretched that government had to build a temporary hospital
and a quarantine station. It is important to note that the social stigma and the fear of losing their
property made people conceal information about the influenza. It was believed that people who
were sent to the ‘disease asylum’ might not come back and would have their property appropriated
by the government (The African Messenger, 1922). In this situation, it became very difficult for the
colonial government to monitor the situation efficiently because people travelled out of Lagos
without collecting a government medical pass. To address this situation, the colonial government

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 11

enlisted the support of the local chiefs and used The Nigerian Pioneer newspaper (whose proprie-
tor was an avowed loyal British subject) to appeal to the people to co-operate with the sanitary and
medical officers (The Nigerian Pioneer, 1918).
Emergency legislation aimed at combating the influenza epidemic in the colonies were often
coloured by racial considerations. Elsewhere in Africa, the fight against malaria and the outbreak
of plague was used by the colonial government to legitimate racial policy in the colonies (Echenberg,
2007 ); in Lagos during the influenza pandemic, the public health measures of the medical and
sanitary department led to the legalisation of racial segregation. Two different conditions were
prescribed for the two different racial classes. The government implemented medical certificates as
a condition to obtain travel passes. To facilitate the issuance of this certificate, conditions were
stipulated. Chief among these conditions was that European travellers must give five days’ notice
before their departure and must also provide details of their travel plans. Those who were living
outside Lagos had to provide a medical certificate to show that they were free of the influenza (The
Nigerian Pioneer, 1919: 10).
On the other hand, Africans were categorised as 1st, 2nd and 3rd class native passengers. These
native passengers had to submit their requests in writing six days before their departure, they had
to submit the name(s) of the relatives that they intended to travel with, they had to pay the discour-
aging fee of 1s 3d four days before their travel, and they also would be segregated for four days
(The Nigerian Pioneer, 1919: 10). This was a clear departure from the measures stipulated for the
European travellers. The racial divide that characterised the management of the epidemic became
pronounced to the extent that a leading newspaper called on the colonial authority to “convert the
colonial hospital into a temporary isolation hospital as no medical practitioners would ever, dream
of sending, or would expect a European –patient going, into the isolation hospital at Ikoyi” (sic)
(The Nigerian Pioneer, 1919: 10).

Conclusion
The first three decades of the 20th century in Lagos were gloomy. The community was embroiled
in many epidemic outbreaks. Sanitary control by the colonial government was received with little
enthusiasm by the indigenous Lagosian society. The quest for improved sanitary conditions in the
colonies received unprecedented enthusiasm from the colonial government as a result of its inevi-
tability, government because there was a new policy by the colonial government to improve sani-
tary condition in the colonies, and because the sustainability of the imperial business was
inextricably linked to improved conditions of hygiene in the colonies. This paper has argued that
the large casualties recorded among the African people during the influenza epidemic were due in
part, to official neglect. Africans were considered as free labour to be exploited and segregated in
a labour pool rather than a co-inhabitant of a living space that deserves similar sanitary facilities to
the European society.
The political economy of the imperial government influenced policies and politics related to
public health in the colonies. Outbreaks of epidemic provided the needed pretext for the implemen-
tation of these goals. However, the outbreak of the influenza epidemic in 1918 changed the physi-
cal complexion of the colonies. Colonial states used medical ideology to further the aim of
colonialism and to reinforce racial superiority. The influenza though a global pandemic ravaging
the entire globe was blamed on the insanitary area of Lagos (Public Record Office (PRO), London,
1919). This assertion could be construed as part of racial propaganda to appropriate the living
space of the native population and to use medical policy as an excuse for policing the colonial state.
The outcome of the epidemics was unimaginable. Prior to this period, there were spasmodic
attempts at sanitary improvement in Lagos. The campaign for profound actions to improve conditions

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

12 Journal of Asian and African Studies 

of sanitation was sustained by the Saro elite; the influenza epidemic brought the agitation for improved
sanitary conditions to fore of discourse among the Lagos elite.
The intensification of the sanitary campaign by the colonial government in the last decade of the
19th century must be located within the context of the larger imperial agenda. Sanitary control and
education about improved hygiene was the major strategy employed by the governing elites to
ensure the survival of the colonial enterprise in the colonies. The sanitary peculiarity of Lagos
posed serious environmental challenges to the colonial government. The problem was compounded
by the desire of the colonial government to appropriate natives’ land in the name of sanitation.
Sanitary control rather than military might was skilfully employed to implement the socio-political
agenda of the British government. Put differently the imperial agenda was clothed in sanitary con-
trol. This might help to explain why Lagosians in 1918–1919 refused to evacuate places identified
to be prone to disease.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

References
Aderinto S (2012) Dangerous aphrodisiac, restless sexuality: Venereal disease, biomedicine, and protec-
tionism in colonial Lagos, Nigeria. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 13(3). DOI:10.1353/
cch.2012.0043.
Alam A (1978) Science and imperialism. Race and Class 19: 239–251.
Arnold D (ed.) (1988) Imperial Medicine and Indigenous Societies. Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
Brown C (1987) The influenza pandemic of 1918 in Indonesia. In: Owen NG (ed.) Death and Disease in
Southeast Asia: Explorations in Social, Medical and Demographic History. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, pp.235–256.
Burnet M and White DO (1972) Natural History of Infectious Disease. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Collier R (1974) The Plague of the Spanish Lady: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918–1919. New York:
Atheneum.
Curtin PD (1985) Medical knowledge and urban planning in tropical Africa. American Historical Review
90(3): 594–613.
De Almeida MA (2013) Epidemics in the news: Health and hygiene in the press in periods of crisis. Public
Understanding of Science 22(7): 886–902. DOI:10.1177/0963662512473212.
Echeverri Dávila B (1993) La Gripe Española: La Pandemia de 1918–1919. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones
Sociológicas.
Echenberg M (2007) Plague Ports: The Global Urban Impact of Bubonic Plague, 1894–1901, New York, New
York University Press
Heaton M and Falola T (2006) Global explanations versus local interpretations: The historiography of the
influenza pandemic of 1918–19 in Africa. History in Africa 33: 205–230.
Johnson NP and Mueller J (2002) Updating the accounts: Global mortality of the 1918–1920 ‘Spanish’ influ-
enza pandemic. Bulletin of the History of Medicine 76(1): 105–115.
Jordan EO (1927) Epidemic Influenza: A Survey. Chicago: American Medical Association.
Killingray D (1983) The influenza epidemic of 1918–1919 in the Gold Coast. Journal of African History
24(4): 485–502.
Killingray D (2003) A new ‘imperial disease’: The influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 and its impact on the
British Empire. Caribbean Quarterly 49: 30–49.
Lawal OA and Jimoh OM (2012) Missiles from ‘Kirsten Hall’: Herbert Macaulay versus Hugh Clifford,
1922–1933. Lagos Historical Review 12: 41–62.

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015

Jimoh 13

MacLeod R and Milton L (eds) (2005) Disease, Medicine and Empire: Perspectives on Western Medicine and
the Experience of European Expansion. London and New York: Routledge.
Mills ID (1986) The 1918–1919 influenza pandemic—The Indian experience. Indian Economic and Social
History Review 23(1): 1–40.
Mueller J (1995) Patterns of Reaction to a Demographic Crisis: The Spanish Influenza Pandemic (1918–1919)
in Sub- Saharan Africa. A Research Proposal and Preliminary Regional and Comparative Findings. Staff
Seminar Paper No. 6. Nairobi: University of Nairobi, Department of History.
Olukoju A (1994) Population Pressure, Housing and Sanitation in Metropolitan Lagos: 1900–1939 in Kunle
L, Urban Transition in Africa: Aspect of Urbanisation and Change in Lagos, Lagos: Pumark Limited
Patterson KD (1983) The influenza epidemic of 1918–1919 in the Gold Coast. Journal of African History
24(4): 485–502.
Patterson KD and Pyle GF (1991) The geography and mortality of the 1918 influenza pandemic. Bulletin of
the History of Medicine 65(1): 4–21.
Phillips H (1990) Black October: The Impact of the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 on South Africa
(Archives Year Book for South African History). Pretoria: Government Printer.
Phillips H and Killingray D (eds) (2003) The Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19: New Perspectives.
London and New York: Routledge.
Phimister IR (1973) The ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918 and its impact on the Southern Rhodesian
mining industry. Central African Journal of Medicine 19(7): 143–148.
Public Record Office (PRO), London (1919) CO879/118 Report of the Influenza Epidemic in Lagos. 25 April
1919.
Rice GW (1988) Black November: The 1918 Influenza Pandemic in New Zealand. Wellington: Allen &
Unwin.
Ross R (1910) The Prevention of Malaria. New York: EP Dutton.
Schram R (1972) A History of Nigeria Health Services. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.
Swanson M (1977) The sanitation syndrome: Bubonic plague and urban native policy in the Cape colony,
1900–1909. Journal of African History 18(3): 387–410.
The African Messenger (1922) The influenza epidemic of 1918. The African Messenger, 9 March 1922.
The Nigerian Pioneer (1918) Notice of influenza. The Nigerian Pioneer, 26 September 1918.
The Nigerian Pioneer (1919) Public health measures. The Nigerian Pioneer, 4 October 1919, 10.
Tomkins SM (1992) The influenza epidemic of 1918–19 in Western Samoa. Journal of Pacific History 27:
181–197.
Tomkins SM (1994) Colonial administration in British Africa during the influenza epidemic of 1918–19.
Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines 28(1): 60–83.

Author biography
Jimoh Mufutau Oluwasegun is affiliated to the Department of History and International Studies, Federal
University Brinni-Kebbi, Kebbi State, Nigeria. He is a member of soceity of Social history, USA and a research
fellow with French Institute for Research in Africa.

Downloaded from jas.sagepub.com by guest on June 11, 2015