No 31, December 2003 ISSN 0962-7839 Contents Conference reports “Medicine and Society in the Midlands, 1750-1950” Birmingham, 16-17 May 2003 —page 2 “National Health Policies in Context” Bergen, 27-28 March 2003 —page 5 Announcements Conferences and Symposia —page 7 Rose Prize —page 9 Membership News —page 10 Correction: ‘Menstruation’ conference —page 10 Roy Porter Student Essay Competition —page 10 Birmingham physician Dr John Ash (1722-1789). See Conference Report on ‘Medicine and Society in the Midlands’ on pages 2-4. Editors: Carsten Timmermann and Cathy McClive Correspondence should be sent to Carsten Timmermann, CHSTM, The University, Mathematics Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. Email [email protected] Web http://www.sshm.org CONFERENCE REPORT described a project undertaken by herself and her colleagues, Helena Berry, Rachel Ives and Medicine and Society in the Gaynor Western at the University of Midlands, 1750-1950 Birmingham Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity. This involved the excavation and Centre for the History of Medicine, osteological analysis of skeletal remains of University of Birmingham, approximately 850 individuals from the 16-17 May 2003 vaults of St Martin’s cemetery, prior to redevelopment of the site. Brickley This conference, sponsored by the Society suggested that the prevalence of fractures is for the Social History of Medicine and The closely linked to factors such as pathological Wellcome Trust, was dedicated to the conditions affecting a population, social memory of Dr Joan Lane (1934-2001), a factors such as inter-personal violence and well-respected historian, who made a work-place risk/technological advancement. significant contribution, both to the social Successful healing can be linked to the history of medicine and the wider history of disease load of those affected and the type of the Midlands. The aim of the conference medical care received, nutritional status and was to bring together historians interested in living conditions of the individual. medicine and society in the Midlands. Information provided by medical records and accounts from the period was used to complement the osteological analysis, thus providing a comprehensive account of the history of medicine relating to fractures in Birmingham during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Women and Healthcare was the theme of the next session and in the first paper Stuart Birmingham General Hospital, circa 1860 Wildman (Birmingham) discussed the changing nature of hospital nurses c1841- The theme of the conference was health 1914. Wildman first reminded us of the and illness in the modern period, but the first nature of nursing before the introduction of speaker, Robert Arnott, (Director, Centre for systems of training, during the 1860s. He the History of Medicine, Birmingham) set the then described how the reforms brought scene by reminding us of the origins of the about a change in the type of person who hospital in history. Arnott traced the history entered nursing. Using information gathered Birmingham’s first hospital, St. Thomas the from census returns, probationer registers Martyr, from its foundation, c1286 to its and hospital records, Wildman discussed the dissolution in 1536. Little is known of what methods taken to improve both the medicine or charitable activities the hospital intellectual and moral standard of recruits practised, but Arnott proposed that it and thereby the standing of the profession. resembled other priory hospitals in offering In the last paper of the day, Judith Porter relief to the poor and providing medical (Worcester) examined the impact of assistance to travellers and pilgrims. Arnott maternity services on mothers in Worcester then considered its role within the growing during the inter-war years. The increasing commercial centre that was Birmingham at intervention of the medical profession in that time. Moving forward into the Modern childbirth has been cited as one of the causes Period, Megan Brickley presented a paper on of maternal mortality in the 1930s. Porter the historical importance of fractures that demonstrated the importance of research at 2 local level and argued that geographical medical institutions followed. However, location also played an important part in the Reinarz demonstrated that the numbers were impact of maternity services on the health of not as significant as suggested by the regional the mother. The day concluded with a most image the hospitals portrayed and declined enjoyable conference supper in the Sheratton further in the late nineteenth century, as Balti Restaurant. other hospitals in the region developed. Judith Lockhart (Warwick) concluded the session with a paper on the early history of the Women’s Hospital in Birmingham. Lockhart focused on the lay administration of the institution and described how her research had revealed that the hospital was the first, in 1872, to employ a lady resident medical officer and a female dispenser. The hospital also claimed to be first in the country to appoint a lady to the post of Honorary Medical Officer. Lockhart proposed that the important part that women played in the management of the institution may be one explanation for the opportunities that the hospital gave to women seeking a career in medicine. The following two papers considered the occupational health risks of Midland occupations. Anne Spurgeon (Birmingham) described the incidence of lung disease Dr John Ash (1722-1789) associated with ‘needle pointing’ and argued that efforts to reduce the health risks were Dame Rachel Waterhouse DBE thwarted for many years by conflicts of (Birmingham) opened the conference on the interest between workers and employers. second day with a biographical sketch of Dr Tim Carter (Birmingham) continued with the John Ash (1722-1789). Ash was fairly typical question of how medical issues become of eighteenth-century physicians; his classical entangled with socio-economic issues. Using education at Oxford allowed him to mix with a 1901 Factory Inspectorate study into ‘brass the wealthier classes and establish himself in poisoning’ to illustrate his argument, Carter practice in Temple Row in Birmingham. discussed contemporary attitudes to the risks Waterhouse described how his contacts with associated with a particular industry and their the Tory aristocracy were particularly useful regulation, at a time when approaches to the in raising the capital to establish the town’s control of occupational diseases were rapidly first voluntary hospital, the General Hospital. evolving. Jonathan Reinarz (Birmingham) enlarged on the history of the General, describing how, Graham Mooney (Portsmouth) opened from the outset, the hospital provided the afternoon with a paper on public health medical services to patients from services in later Victorian Birmingham. After surrounding counties. Between 1779-1900 some background information on the the hospital received considerable funding relevant legislation, and the medical and from sources beyond the immediate town political reasons of those opposed to and county, establishing a pattern that vaccination and notification of infectious subsequent generations of Birmingham disease, Mooney described the issues leading 3 up to the provision of publicly funded health Fund, and Willis proposed that this provided services in the city. He proposed that, the template for the Birmingham Hospital having established the reporting of cases of Contributory Scheme. Instigated by infectious disease to the local authority, the Birmingham Hospitals Council in 1928, this subsequent hospitalisation of vast numbers extended the contributory scheme to workers of patients, placed enormous financial of ‘moderate means’. Willis discussed the demands on the city, both in terms of attitude of the medical profession to this institutional provision and laboratory initiative and assessed the scheme as part of provision. Mooney argued, therefore, that by civil society in Birmingham. John Welshman enabling the hospitalisation of patients and (Lancaster) brought us up to the end of our assisting in the creation of demand for period with a study of resource allocation in bacterial analysis of specimens, infectious the NHS. Using the Sheffield Regional disease surveillance had profound Hospital Board as a case study, Welshman implications for the way in which medicine demonstrated the inequalities in resource was practised in the city. allocation across the regions. Welshman argued that, in terms of such indicators as the Mental Health was the theme of the next ratio of staff to beds and the number of session, opened by Jane Adams (Warwick), consultants, the league table of resource-rich who presented a paper on the struggle to and resource-poor Regional Hospital Boards establish a County Asylum in Herefordshire. remained essentially unchanged between Adams described how, despite an active 1948 and 1974. Moreover, this disparity was campaign for such an institution from the only partially resolved by the work of RAWP mid-1830s, a public lunatic asylum was not in the early 1970s. Welshman attributed this established in Herefordshire until 1851. to the imbalance in inherited resources, the Adams then explored the factors that strength of the key personalities involved and underlay the campaign and the motives of proposed that Sheffield may have been those with involved in the provision of care further disadvantaged by the establishment of lunatics and linked the timing of the of medical schools elsewhere in the region.