South Africa's first national public health measure was passed in 1919, just over 70 years ago. Attempts to enact such legislation in the years immediately after Union had been thwarted by vested interests and it was only the effects of World War I and, more particularly, the dire Spanish influenza epidemic of 1918, which forced Parliament to pass this pioneering measure in June 1919. It remained South Africa's basic public health measure until 1977.