Trove Tuesday – It Happened in Tamworth in 1908 – Insanitary Hospital

Insanitary Hospital

The hospital in Tamworth had it’s fair share of hardship in 1908.  Back in April of this year I posted an article about the outbreak of Typhoid and Diphtheria in Tamworth after large scale flooding of the town (read story here).  At the time of the outbreak it was decided to engage the Board of Health to carry out an investigation and the resulting report was not what the hospital would have wanted to hear.

Apparently, the report indicated that the removal of effluent from the hospital was achieved  through drainage pipes into ditches within the hospital grounds.  One of the trenches was also found to be in close proximity to a well, the water in which was used for drinking. 

After months of meticulous attention to detail, cleanliness and law Tamworth Hospital did seem to have the outbreak of Infectious disease under control though, as reported in newspapers later in the year.  In total there were 62 cases of Typhoid in Tamworth in 1908,  4 of which could be attributed to the Hospital itself.  I am sure that my grandparents,  Edward Bailey and Ines Smith, would have wondered about the safety of going to hospital, discussing it either amongst themselves, or with their respective families after reading such articles in the local paper.

Tamworth Rural Referral Hospital today is a state of the art medical facility for a regional area with new wards and Emergency department having only been opened last year.  Having worked at the hospital for nearly 40 years I can honestly say that we are lucky indeed to have such a fine facility with well trained staff in our town, and Tamworth residents in general are fortunate to live in 2018 and not 1908. 

Sources: 

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114756924

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article114755185

TROVE Tuesday – It Happened in Tamworth in 1908 – Diabetes

Death Due to Diabetes

How very sad that the young life of Miss Mary Constance Buckley was taken by a disease which in our lifetime is basically considered quite manageable.  Mary Constance would have had a vastly reduced life expectancy once diagnosed with Diabetes as the disease was classed as a terminal illness at the beginning of the 1900’s.  She was just 27 years old, roughly a year older than my grandmother Ines Maude Smith, and there is a distinct possibility that they knew, or at least knew of, each another. 

I tried “trusty old Google” to find out how Diabetes may have been treated in 1908 and found the following:

Between 1900-1915, a variety of different diabetes treatments were proposed. Early treatments included:

• the oat-cure, which involved eating 8 ounces of oatmeal mixed with 8 ounces of butter every 2 hours
• the milk diet
• the rice cure
• potato therapy
• opium
• overfeeding to replenish lost fluids and increase weight, symptoms that many people with diabetes experience

It wasn’t until 1921 that development of insulin changed the management of Diabetes – years after Mary Constance, and many many others had succumbed to the disease.

Sources:

Diabetes Treatments:  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/317484.php

Newspaper Article:  nla.news-article193208764