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Asher Asher: Victorian Physician, Medical Reformer and Communal Servant* KENNETH COLLINS

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Asher Asher: Victorian Physician, Medical Reformer and Communal Servant* KENNETH COLLINS Asher Asher: Victorian physician, medical reformer and communal servant* KENNETH COLLINS Asher Asher was born inGlasgow in 1837, the eldest son of immigrants. His father, Philip (or Pinchas), was of a rabbinical family from Lublin, Poland, and his mother, Hannah, fromHolland.1 Philip Asher's grandfather had been Rabbi Zev Wolff, a Dayan in Lublin, where his father, Asher Wolff, ran a small dry-goods store. Orphaned at the age of sixteen, Philip lived at first with an uncle, but soon decided to seek his fortune in Britain. In London he adopted his father's first name as his surname and worked for a while in the docks before moving to Glasgow in the 1830s. There he set up as a furrier. Glasgow was then home to only a few dozen Jews. The first synagogue had been established in 1823, although Jews had lived and worked there for some time. Like Philip Asher, the first Jews had been attracted to the rapidly expanding city by the business prospects generated by the growth of a middle-class with a taste for luxury goods. From an early age Asher Asher had been an assiduous scholar in both Jewish and secular subjects. His initial Jewish studies were conducted at home and he had spent long evening and weekend hours studying with his father. He attended St Enoch's Parish School and then theHigh School of Glasgow, entering the University of Glasgow in 1853 to study medicine when only fifteen years old. Scottish universities were open to Jews at this time, when religious tests still applied inOxford and Cambridge.2 Medicine offered Asher an alternative to working with his father in the fur trade. Yet entry into themedical profession inmid-nineteenth-century Bri? tain had its risks. The strong commercial atmosphere in cities like Glasgow set a low value on themedical profession.3 Emigration to the colonies, particu * to the on 2001. 1 Paper presented Society 24 May Details on Asher Asher can be found inKenneth Collins, 'AsherAsher MD (1837-1889) 2 Doctor of the Poor', Glasgow Medicine (1984) 12-14; idem, Go and Learn: The International Story ofJews andMedicine inScotland, 1739-1945 (Aberdeen1988) 51-4; idem,Second City Jewry:The Jews ofGlasgow in theAge ofExpansion: 1790-1919 (Glasgow 1990)44; David Kohn-Zedek, Bet Asher (Hebrew; bound with Asher Asher MD 1837-1889: Collected Writings The York 2: 180-1. 2 [London 1916]; JewishEncyclopaedia (New 1925) Go and Learn n. 11-13. 3 Collins, (see 1) Margaret Lamb, 'The Medical Profession', in Olive Checkland and Margaret Lamb (eds) Health Care as Social History; The Glasgow Case (Aberdeen 1982) 17. 163 Jewish Historical Society of England is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve, and extend access to Jewish Historical Studies ® www.jstor.org Kenneth Collins larly theWest Indies or Australia, drew away a significant number of early Jewish medical graduates in Scotland. Asher would have had little contact with established practitioners, and the local Jewish community was too small to provide him with a base for his career. Asher pursued his studies with enthusiasm and supported himself by working as a book-keeper in a local Jewish clothing firm.He had a successful undergraduate career, winning sev? eral class prizes notably inmateria medica and the practice of medicine, and gained the first prize in forensic medicine. He graduated with an MD in 1856, the first Jew born in Glasgow to achieve this distinction and only the fourth Jew to have graduated at the University there. Asher was a contemporary of the great Scottish Victorian public-health specialist Dr James Burn Russell, and their careers show interesting parallels. Both were born in 1837 and they studied together at the High School of Glasgow. Russell entered medicine later than Asher, completing an arts degree before going on to become a visionary and innovative Medical Officer of Health in Glasgow between 1872 and 1898. During these years Russell promoted health policies based on improvements in housing and sanitation and the prevention of infection, just as Asher was to do in London.4 After graduating, Asher became a licentiate of the Royal College of Sur? geons of Edinburgh and began work as a parochial medical officer, covering Wester Cadder at Bishopbriggs, then a small mining town near Glasgow with a population of 5000. There was a tradition in the Glasgow area of providing freemedical services for the poor, and this offered the new graduate an oppor? tunity to gain experience.5 The salary of ?15 a year was low and the work arduous, but as a young medical graduate aged nineteen, Asher could not have been choosy.6 The Parochial Board also ensured that the job was not a sinecure, closely scrutinizing the work of theMedical Officer and making sure he followed their policy of financial stringency.7 Asher was required to attend to the poor of the district and those resident within five miles of it without charge. Any fee for attending paupers living outside the district was earned only with the consent of the Parochial Board. West Cadder's annual health budget was minimal besides themeagre medical salary, the main expense being the ?5 paid to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary to cover the hospitalization of Cadder residents.8 To augment his income Asher undertook private medical work in Glasgow, although he was always 4 Edna Doctor: Dr Burn Russell: Linton 17. 5 Robertson, Glasgow's James 1837-igio (East 1998) Lamb n. 5. 6 (see 3) Go and Learn n. 7 Collins, (see 1) 55. Rona 'Poor Law in Cheekland and Lamb n. 17. 8 Gaffney, Hospitals: 1845-1914', (see 3) Minutes of theWest Cadder Parochial Medical Board, 1858-1862, Greater Glasgow Health Board Archives, Mitchell Library, Glasgow. 164 StfvLi, ,J6M Plate i Asher Asher, a portrait. Kenneth Collins ready to treat the needy without charge.9 Without such private work most doctors inmid-Victorian Glasgow would have been unable to survive finan? cially.10 Asher was also deeply involved in the affairs of the local Jewish community, which now had about 200 members. The 1850s had seen a steady growth in Glasgow's Jewry and the community's institutions were becoming stronger and better organized. From 1858 Asher attended the local Jewish poor and sick as Medical Officer of the Glasgow Hebrew Philanthropic Society, the first Jewish holder of this post. He was also Honorary Secretary of the Glas? gow Hebrew Congregation, yet he still found time to continue his Hebrew and Jewish studies.11 Asher displayed deep erudition in these, despite being almost completely self-taught. Asher resigned his post in Cadder in December 1861 after he and the Medical Officer for the neighbouring parish of Easter Cadder had applied unsuccessfully for an increase in salary. The four years in Bishopbriggs proved a valuable start to his career, however, for they taught him themedical and social requirements of the urban poor and the difficulties in providing medical care while under serious financial constraints. He leftGlasgow for London in 1862 to join Dr Jacob Canstatt in practice at 4 Castle Street in Houndsditch. Canstatt had provided primary medical care for the Jewish poor of London at first under the auspices of the larger London synagogues, but in 1862 the system of delivering health services was altered. The London Jewish Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor (LJBG), originally formed in 1859, now assumed responsibility for the health care of the poor from the synagogues. Asher's specific kind of medical experience, as well as his Jewish scholarship and fluency inHebrew and Yiddish, would have been consider? able assets in his new work. He was now working for a better-funded, locally based and religiously sensitive care body, even though such institutions often had a reputation for patronizing and parsimonious leadership. He was there at the start of its operations and showed that he possessed the ability to create and develop organizations, and the vision to drive forward themedical aspects of this particular one, recognized in the 1860s as among themost progressive philanthropic bodies in England.12 Asher's meticulous annual reports for the LJBG clearly demonstrate his care in tending to the medical needs of the London Jewish poor.13 He pro 9 Kohn-Zedek n. xv. 10 (see i) Lamb n. 20. 11 (see 3) Kohn-Zedek n. xv-xvi. 12 (see 1) Lara Marks, Model Mothers: Jewish Mothers and Maternity Provision in East London, 1870 13 1939 (Oxford1994) 32. Annual Reports of the London Board of Jewish Guardians [hereafter LJBG], 1862-1866, MS 173, Hartley Library, University of Southampton. 166 Asher Asher: Victorian physician, medical reformer and communal servant vided careful guidelines for his work and ample statistics to permit evaluation of his activities. Canstatt and Asher received considerable financial support from themanagement, enabling them to carry out their work well provided with medical essentials. A subscription was taken out to a maternity society to provide formidwives. Bathhouse tickets were purchased and issued at the discretion of the medical officers.Medicines, such as quinine, cod-liver oil, wine and brandy, which were beyond the means of the poor, could be sup? plied directly on Asher's recommendation. The functioning of the new med? ical service was monitored monthly, the reports furnishing a guide to the miserable conditions of the time. Malnutrition, poor housing and a lack of sanitation characterized the lives of all the poor of London. In his first annual report Asher identified the key factors adversely affecting the health of the community.14 He made strenuous efforts to overcome the lack of adequate food and clothing and cleaning facilities, the poor light and ventilation and overcrowded housing.
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