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Hospital beds on the Maheno
Beds aboard the First World War hospital ship, Maheno.
The hospital ship Maheno
A tinted postcard of the hospital ship Maheno.
Hospital ships - Merchant marine
In May 1915, as the casualty lists mounted at Gallipoli, the government chartered a hospital ship, the Union Company’s 5282-ton trans-Tasman liner Maheno
Douglas Jolly

Described by US medical historian David Adams as ‘one of the most notable war surgeons of the 20th century’, Douglas Waddell Jolly was born in Cromwell, Central Otago in 1904 and graduated from Otago Medical School in 1929. There he became an active member of the Student Christian Movement and its non-sectarian Christian socialism would remain a guiding principle of his life.

Kids at the Wilson Home for crippled children, 1943
Children with Polio lying their beds in the solarium at the Wilson Home for crippled children in Takapuna, Auckland, 1943
Charles Begg

Charles Begg was New Zealand's most decorated member of the Medical Corps during the First World War. Born in Dunedin in September 1879, he attended Kaikorai School and Otago Boys' High School before studying medicine at the University of Otago Medical School in 1898. He graduated with distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 1903. He became an MD in 1905 and the following year returned to New Zealand, where he went into general practice in Wellington. In December 1909 he married Lillian Treadwell. The couple had two sons.

German medical examination kit
A German medical examination kit souvenired during the battle for Passchendaele in 1917.
South Island influenza death rates
Death rates in South Island towns and counties from the influenza pandemic
Margaret Cruickshank memorial
Dr Cruikshank was the first woman doctor to practise in New Zealand and served in Waimate from 1896 to 1918. She died during the 1918 influenza pandemic and a memorial statue was unveiled in 1923.
Influenza gazette notice
This notice in the New Zealand Gazette gave special powers to all District Health Officers to close public gathering places that might cause the spread of influenza.
Wellington Town Hall during the influenza pandemic
Emergency ambulances alongside the Wellington Town Hall during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
Influenza at Seacliff Hospital
22 people died from influenza at Dunedin's Seacliff psychiatric hospital during the 1918 pandemic.
Aftermath - 1918 influenza pandemic
Robert Makgill Following the pandemic speculation continued over the Niagara's involvement in bringing the virus to New Zealand. The Department of Public Health was also heavily criticised. The government responded by setting up a royal commission with wide powers of investigation. It fell to Robert Makgill, acting Chief Health Officer, to implement the Commission's recommendations. One of the recommendations, which Makgill had argued for, was for a new Health Act ‘to consolidate and simplify the existing legislation'.
Response to the influenza pandemic
Uneven rates of death - 1918 influenza pandemic
It is clear that no matter how the second wave developed in New Zealand, it was many times more deadly than any previous influenza outbreaks. No other event has killed so many New Zealanders in so short a space of time. While the First World War claimed the lives of more than 18,000 New Zealand soldiers over a four-year period, the second wave of the 1918 influenza epidemic killed almost 8600 people in less than two months. Influenza in institutions Death did not occur evenly throughout the country. Some communities were decimated; others escaped largely unscathed.
The pandemic begins abroad
The first wave When the ‘new pandemic flu’ first appeared in 1918 there was no immediate cause for alarm. The disease was different to other strains experienced in the past – for example, it was unusually prevalent amongst young healthy adults. But most people affected by what would turn out to be ‘the first wave’ of the pandemic recovered. The Spanish flu The 1918 influenza pandemic was commonly referred to as ‘the Spanish flu’ but it did not originate in Spain.
The pandemic hits New Zealand
Many people believed that the second wave of the 1918 influenza pandemic arrived in New Zealand in the form of ‘a deadly new virus’ on board the RMS Niagara.
The 1918 influenza pandemic
Influenza instructions for nurses In the early 21st century anxiety over the danger of avian influenza virus H5N1 revived memories of New Zealand's worst disease outbreak, the lethal influenza pandemic of 1918. In two months New Zealand lost about half as many people to influenza as it had in the whole of the First World War.
Robert Makgill
Robert Makgill was to play an important role during the 1918 influenza pandemic and its aftermath,
Robert Makgill

Robert Makgill was a key figure in the development of New Zealand's public health system. He was one of the country's first district health officers, at a time when central government took on greater responsibility for public health. He was to play an important role during the 1918 influenza pandemic and its aftermath, notably as ‘the chief architect’ of the ‘the most useful legacy of the 1918 influenza pandemic’: the 1920 Health Act.

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