Boere Krygsgevangenes in Ceylon - Boekmakierie.co.za

convalescent Boer prisoner-of-war with the prospect of a final spell at Mount Lavinia,
looking as they pleased out upon the blue sea or back over a tree-furrowed country and
distant hills.
But simple though these Boers proved to be they were not humourless, even on their sickbed.
One of the younger medical officers amused by the guileless good nature of his
patients, propounded some problem with him on his daily round. One day, he said “I say,
old boy, do you know the moon is inhabited?” “Impossible”, the old fox replied with his
habitual calm. “But have you not heard that your friends, the French, have watched the
inhabitants of the moon through the giant telescope at the Paris Exhibition?”
“Impossible, my lad” remarked the old Boer, “if the moon were inhabited the English
would long ago have tried to annex her!”
It was not the singular misfortune of the Boer alone to face the tragic effects of this
epidemic. The health of the camp where the British guard was located continued
satisfactory for about a month after the outbreak of enteric was first noticed. In mid-
October, a soldier reported sick with fever which was diagnosed as enteric. From that
time onwards, other cases of a similar nature were admitted at frequent intervals to the
Military Hospital. The establishment was maintained as a separate institution. It was
staffed by the R.A.M.C. Surgeon Major Manders and Colonel Quill officiating in turn as
Senior Medical Officer.
The Revd. R.P. Butterfield, who was serving at the time as Chaplain to the Forces, and
was an assiduous visitor to both the Military and Boer Hospitals helps imagination to
picture the calamitous situation in a pithy statement: “I got to know the Burial Service by
heart.”
It is indeed equally pitiful to think of those time-expired British soldiery who paid the
supreme penalty. Denied the excitement of active field service they had all the tedium of
guard work, and no doubt looked forward as eagerly as the war prisoners they guarded
for the day when peace should come. Their military funerals alternated with the constant
procession and much greater numbers of Boer burials. While the military Chaplain
officiated at the former the funeral services of the latter were conducted for the most part
by their own Predicants.
The causation of this outbreak had been traced beyond doubt. The transmission of
infection raised a good deal of speculation. Opinion waxed and differed. Some said it
was airborne and others that it was fly borne. The precautions taken almost ruled out all
possibility of water being the source of infections. The pathological aspect of the subject
was freely discussed in medical circles, and at a meeting of the local branch of the British
Medical Association.
On the subsidence of the epidemic, Dr. F. Keyt and Dr. H.U. Leembruggen replaced their
brother officers, de Saram and Eapen. Dr. Van Langenberg left with a draft of
convalescents for the camp opened at Mount Lavinia, and Dr. Leembruggen took charge
of the hospitals at Urugas when that camp was in due course established.