Medical and Healthcare in the pre-Independence era

Thoughts & Reflections

By Dr R Neerunjun Gopee

Reports of violence against doctors and other health personnel take me back to the couple of decades before our independence when I was growing up, a time when doctors were held in high respect. Their very presence, imbued as they were with the latest knowledge that was available then and combined with their experience, almost commanded trust and inspired quiet assurance. But there were other practitioners too, those who made ‘passe’ to treat, for example, some skin lesions or who recommended plants that had healing properties. But such plants were known to many families too, who grew them in their yard. Our own garden had many of them.

Besides, there were nurses, male and female, who went around doing dressings, giving injections recommended by doctors, even treating minor injuries and puncturing boils and abscesses. They belonged to particular localities and rendered their services as and when, charging for example, Rs 1.00 for an injection. Big money in those days!

As far as doctors go, mostly in my family, we resorted to well-known general practitioners in Curepipe, and I do not remember that anyone ever attended hospital, the only one we knew about being Candos or Victoria Hospital, mostly referred to as Candos. We’d heard about Civil Hospital and Brown Sequard Hospital – l’hopital fou’ – where someone we knew had to be taken to for suddenly behaving and speaking very oddly.

There was also ‘l’Hopital Mangalkhan’, set up after World War II for the treatment of polio cases, an epidemic of the disease having occurred during the closing years of the war. Much later in my career as a doctor I not only worked as a specialist at PMOC but also met the English surgeon who had been sent to run the polio hospital and had worked there from 1947 to 1949.

My earliest remembrance of ‘treatment’ was what systematically happened during the August school holidays, the administration of the purgative known as botrice whose smell made us recoil. But there was no running away for any of us children from swallowing that sickly sweet-bitter mixture of l’huile ricin and coffee, which we did with Mother or Dadi squeezing our noses tight and that we had to gulp fast. To neutralise the offensive taste in our mouth, we were given pastilles limon – disc-like cent-size lemon lozenges, which we used to buy at 4 for one cent.

The next torture was swallowing bouillon brede chouchou after each trip to the toilet, of the bucket type that was in the yard, until the urge had stopped by the evening, and we had a dinner of khichri. We were told that the botrice was for cleaning our bowels, since worm infestation was rife as we used to go about barefoot when playing on the bare earth, and in fact it was not unusual to pass worms in the stools.

The variety of medicinal plants in our garden sufficed to take care of the common ailments, and obviously our elders had a good empirical knowledge about them. All of them had a very pleasant but distinctive aromatic smell (and I had to wait until Organic Chemistry in HSC to learn what aromatic compounds were made up of), and equally nice taste, so we had no reluctance sipping hot infusions of them, often while sitting around a coal fire burning in the rechaud on winter evenings. Ayapana was a standard remedy for abdominal pain, camomille serving the same purpose for toddlers in particular. A combination of la verveine and patte poule took care of the common cold and the stuffed noses and sore throat it was associated with. If we had itchy skin lesions, we boiled feuilles chandelle in the water we would use to take our weekly full bath on Sundays; on the other days we cleansed ourselves daily with cold water from the single tap we had in the yard.

However, for la gratelle or scabies we applied the foul pungent smelling sulphur-based ointment obtained from the dispensary. For headache we used Aspro tabs bought from the Chinese corner shop.

From time to time though, we had to consult general practitioners, of which there were several well-known ones in Curepipe: Dr Rivalland, Dr Soreefan, Dr Celestin, Dr Bhageerutty, Dr Lallah, Dr Harrel (nicknamed ti Harel). Another one, Dr Adolphe to whom my father took me once for stomach pain, was actually not a doctor as I learnt much later afterwards, but an experienced nurse who practised as far as I remember near Pharmacie Cartwright in the Royal Road, Curepipe Road not far from the other well-known Pharmacie Simonet, an iconic fixture for many a long year in Curepipe, alas now extinct. Talk of nostalgia…

Dr Adolphe had a reputation for treating stomach pain with potion blanc, which had a sweetish tangy taste. I remember him as a soft-spoken, warm person, wearing a chapeau feutre. Dr Rivalland’s consultation was at the rear of what is now Sik Yuen supermarket, and I had consulted him too once, what for I don’t remember. He was a huge, rotundman, always smiling, with an expansive paunch, always elegantly dressed, and a completely bald, shiny head.

Among the hospital doctors that we heard about were Dr Seegobin, who had a reputation as a surgeon at Candos. He had no formal qualifications as a surgeon, but in those days, doctors received a broad training and were able to handle most common conditions, performing Caesarian sections also. It was much later that we started to have ‘proper’ specialists.

Dr Seegobin lived in Bougainville Street, which is not far from Farquhar Street where we stayed. During the polio epidemic, he went on air with Prof John Seddon, translating the latter’s message about precautions to be taken to prevent getting infected with the polio virus. Prof Seddon had been delegated by the Colonial Secretary to make a survey of the situation and make recommendations, one of which was the setting up of the polio hospital.

Dr Bathfield, whose brother Bertie was my chemistry teacher in HSC at RCC, was the orthopaedic surgeon at Candos, and Medical Superintendent. When the Princess Margaret Orthopaedic Centre was inaugurated by Princess Margaret in 1956, Dr F. Ghadially came on contract from England to join him as orthopaedic surgeon. I had heard about Dr Ghadially when he had operated on a newborn cousin sister of mine who had a severe deformity of the spine. Much later, 1984-86, I worked with him at the PMOC and benefited immensely from his experience as the pioneer of Plastic Surgery and Burns Treatment in Mauritius.

There was a dispensary, dispensaire, in Curepipe Road similar to others in the other districts of the country, providing basic services including vaccinations that were coming up. A friend of mine used to work there, assisting Dr Julia Maigrot, founder of SACIM. He was among the many young Mauritians with GCE/SC pass who had no prospects in the 1950s of Mauritius and who ventured out to the UK by ship, and by dint of hard work and perseverance established themselves in the nursing profession in England. Most of them settled there permanently, as did my friend who used to give graphic accounts to me of how he had drained a panari in a finger under guidance, and other procedures that he was proud to accomplish. These dispensaries were later to become Health Centres, as part of the network of Primary Healthcare.

This is only a very brief account of the medical and health scene from which we have evolved to the present day, and there’s much more in my next book that I am working on! It’s a fascinating journey of what all we have faced to reach to our present situation. The story continues…

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 7 March 2025