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the records suggest a steady incidence of the disease. In 1914-1915 there were 9 deaths

2
from TB, as well as 7 from bronchitis and 6 from pneumonia.

Other diseases which the Kalk Bay municipality regularly reported were diphtheria and
scarlet fever, both childhood scourges, and puerperal fever, usually an indication of

insanitary childbirth conditions and spread by midwives and doctors.

Measuring public health

How do we measure standards of health and the quality of life? Remember that the very
notion of measuring comes from the changes in the way of thinking which occurred during

th
the 18 century Enlightenment. The collection of statistics, the backbone of any public
th
health movement, really started in the early 19 century. The ability to collect statistics
also goes with a well-organised bureaucracy. At the Cape, although some data was

collected erratically before that, the statistical movement only developed from the 1880s.

With more money flowing into the colony, and the immigration of more doctors
accustomed to the use of statistical data, pressure was put on the Cape government to

conduct proper censuses, and to register births and deaths. The first modern census was in
1891, and the next in 1904 (delayed because of the SA War). For Kalk Bay, the 1904

census is the most useful. In 1894 the registration of births and deaths was started officially
- and the Cape remained the only colony in South Africa to have proper data before Union

- or, indeed, since then. So what can we glean from these various sources?

2 Cape Town Municipality, Medical Officer of Health's report 1914-1915.

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