HEALTHCARE AND MIDWIFERY

A brief glimpse of some aspects of 1901 healthcare provision.

Before the 1902 Midwives Act introduced training and supervision for midwives, midwives were sometimes 'untrained and uncertified' – these being termed handywomen or 'certified but untrained' – these being termed bona fide midwives.

The 1902 Midwives Act outlawed the former in England and Wales and marked the phasing out of the latter. However, social factors continued to influence women's choices of birth attendant, such that the new legislation did not entirely eliminate continuity in traditional practices and allegiance; for example, fewer midwives in rural areas 'allowed for' a surviving network of bona fide midwives in some areas, and mothers having second or subsequent babies may well have made choices out of familiarity and loyalty, so bona fide midwives could thus maintain their caseloads.

St Luke's Poor Law Hospital

Opened in 1901, later being named the Union Infirmary. Woollen mill workers suffering from Woolsorters' disease are likely to have been treated in this new hospital.

Woolsorters' disease was an industrial disease associated with Yorkshire's textile industry of 19^th and early 20^th centuries. This could affect the lungs or the skin; the former was regarded as being due to spores of  anthrax being air-borne and inhaled from contaminated fleeces and yarns in the woollen mills. The more common symptoms, those occurring on the skin, are thought to have entered via any broken skin such as cuts; this often led to black sores on the skin. (A third route of infection was from consuming contaminated meat).

However, with better understanding of the need to clean and disinfect both fleeces and mill floors, along with cleaning the work environment generally, the incidence of Woolsorters' disease appears to have been in decline compared to earlier years.                                                                      

However, seven decades prior to our focus year of 1901, an effective arsenic-based sheep dip had been developed; in 1830. When the practice of sheep dipping became widespread, flocks were protected from infestation and wool quality improved. An article titled ''Arsenic and Old Wool'' documents that The Lancet carried many reports during the 19^th Century regarding shepherds suffering the effects of toxic sheep dip. Arsenic is a persistent toxin: the pervasiveness of this is evidenced by a modern fact that old sheep dip sites in Australia that were contaminated by arsenic, are now considered a public health threat.

Arsenic remains in soil, in wool and in the bodies of those exposed, we're told. Could arsenic from the sheep dip developed in 1830 still have been causing industrial illness 71 years later in the woollen mills of 1901 and beyond?  Readers' inner sleuths can read around this possibility at:

From Medical Officer's Report:  Births in 1901

   Births in Warley ward:  60

  In the Workhouse: 11

Deaths from infectious diseases in 1901

   In Warley ward:  2 from Smallpox

                               6 from Enteric fever

                            18 from Scarlet fever

                               4 from Diphtheria

                               2 from Erysipelas

     Total 32, equating to 1.13% of the population.

   In Public Institutions:

   In Royal Infirmary:  11 from Scarlet fever

                                      1 from Enteric fever

                                      2 from Diphtheria

   In the Workhouse:    1 from Enteric fever

                                    1 from Erysipelas

   In the Orphanage:    8 from Scarlet fever

Matron of the Borough Hospital was Miss Robison in 1901.

Disinfector was T.W. Booth.

Chief Sanitary Inspector was David Travis.

References:

Ref: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3338125/#s2

https://bancroftsfromyorkshire.blogspot.com/2013/03/la-maladie-de-bradfordthe-woolsorters.html

https://academic.oup.com/occmed/article-abstract/54/7/489/1370819?login

calderdalecompanion.co.uk/b113_a.html#32 (Archive)

https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/woolsorters-disease-arsenic-not-anthrax