Health
The evolution of medical support
This webpage
is still to be written.
Birth
The only
cash outlay in an ordinary confinement was half a crown, the fee of the old
woman who, as she said, saw the beginning and end of everybody. She was, of
course, not a certified midwife; but she was a decent, intelligent old body,
clean in her person and methods and very kind. For the half-crown she
officiated at the birth and came every morning for ten days to bath the baby
and make the mother comfortable. She also tried hard to keep the patient in bed
for the ten days; but with little success. Some mothers refused to stay there
because they knew they were needed downstairs; others because they felt so
strong and fit they saw no reason to lie there. Some women actually got up on
the third day, and, as far as could be seen at the time, suffered no ill
effects. (Lark
Rise, Flora Thomson, Chapter VIII, The
Box)
Health
After the
Norman conquest, small hospitals appeared from the mid twelfth century, often
at crossroads or on the approach to towns or boroughs. They tended to be more
concerned with care than cure. Some tended to act as alms houses and others
focused on diseases treated as leprosy. They tended to give overnight relief.
The name spital was often associated with a hospital, as at Gilling.
The
general health of the hamlet was excellent. The healthy, open-air life and the
abundance of coarse but wholesome food must have been largely responsible for
that; but lack of imagination may also have played a part. Such people at that
time did not look for or expect illness, and there were not as many patent
medicine advertisements then as now to teach them to search for symptoms of
minor ailments in themselves. Beecham's and Holloway's Pills were already
familiar to all newspaper readers, and a booklet advertising Mother Siegel's
Syrup arrived by post at every house once a year. But only Beecham's Pills were
patronized, and those only by a few; the majority relied upon an occasional
dose of Epsom salts to cure all ills. One old man, then nearly eighty, had for
years drunk a teacupful of frothing soapsuds every Sunday morning. 'Them cleans
the outers,' he would say, 'an' stands to reason they must clean th' innards, too.' His dose did not appear to do him any
harm; but he made no converts. (Lark Rise, Flora Thomson, Chapter VIII, The
Box)