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Throughout the Victorian period, life-threatening diseases were no respecter of class, affecting rich and poor alike. However, the medical treatment for such diseases differed significantly, depending on the class of patient. The wealthy received private medical treatment at home or, later, in a practitioner's consulting room. The middle classes might also pay for their treatment but, in addition, they could attend one of an increasing number of specialist hospitals. The working classes could get free treatment from charitable voluntary hospitals or dispensaries. For the abject poor who were receiving poor relief, their only option was to seek treatment at the workhouse infirmary. The experience of a patient going into hospital at this time was vastly different from that at the end. This was not just in terms of being attended by trained nurses or in the medical and surgical advances which had taken place. Different methods for treating diseases and the use of antiseptic and aseptic techniques to combat killer hospital infections led to a much higher standard of care than was previously available.
This work offers a social and cultural history of Victorian medicine "from below," as experienced by ordinary practitioners and patients, often described in their own words. Health, Medicine, and Society in Victorian England is a human story of medicine in 19th-century England. It's a story of how a diverse and competitive assortment of apothecary apprentices, surgeons who learned their trade by doing, and physicians schooled in ancient Greek medicine but lacking in any actual experience with patients, was gradually formed into a medical profession with uniform standards of education and qualification. It's a story of how medical men struggled with "new" diseases such as cholera and "old" ones known for centuries, such as tuberculosis, syphilis, and smallpox, largely in the absence of effective drugs or treatments, and so were often reduced to standing helplessly by as their patients died. It's a story of how surgeons, empowered first by anesthesia and later by antiseptic technique, vastly expanded the field of surgery—sometimes with major benefits for patients, but sometimes with disastrous results. Above all, it's a story of how gender and class ideology dominated both practitioners and patients. Women were stridently excluded from medical education and practice of any kind until the end of the century, but were hailed into the new field of nursing, which was felt to be "natural" to the gentler sex. Only the poor were admitted to hospitals until the last decades of the century, and while they often received compassionate care, they were also treated as "cases" of disease and experimented upon with freedom. Yet because medical knowledge was growing by leaps and bounds, Victorians were fascinated with this new field and wrote novels, poetry, essays, letters, and diaries, which illuminate their experience of health and disease for us. Newly developed techniques of photography, as well as improved print illustrations, help us to picture this fascinating world. This vivid history of Victorian medicine is enriched with many literary examples and visual images drawn from the period.
A vivid portrait of the day-to-day experience in the public asylums of nineteenth-century England, by the bestselling author of Broadmoor Revealed. Life in the Victorian Asylum reconstructs the lost world of nineteenth-century public asylums. This fresh take on the history of mental health reveals why county asylums were built, the sort of people they housed, and the treatments they received, as well as the enduring legacy of these remarkable institutions. Mark Stevens, a professional archivist, and expert on asylum records, delves into Victorian mental health hospital documents to recreate the experience of entering an asylum and being treated there—perhaps for a lifetime. Praise for Broadmoor Revealed “Superb.” —Family Tree magazine “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “Paints a fascinating picture.” —Who Do You Think You Are? magazine
An “utterly brilliant” and deeply researched guide to the sights, smells, endless wonders, and profound changes of nineteenth century British history (Books Monthly, UK). Step into the past and experience the world of Victorian England, from clothing to cuisine, toilet arrangements to transport—and everything in between. A Visitor’s Guide to Victorian England is “a brilliant guided tour of Charles Dickens’s and other eminent Victorian Englishmen’s England, with insights into where and where not to go, what type of people you’re likely to meet, and what sights and sounds to watch out for . . . Utterly brilliant!” (Books Monthly, UK). Like going back in time, Higgs’s book shows armchair travelers how to find the best seat on an omnibus, fasten a corset, deal with unwanted insects and vermin, get in and out of a vehicle while wearing a crinoline, and avoid catching an infectious disease. Drawing on a wide range of sources, this book blends accurate historical details with compelling stories to bring alive the fascinating details of Victorian daily life. It is a must-read for seasoned social history fans, costume drama lovers, history students, and anyone with an interest in the nineteenth century.
Sex, gender, charity and class in Victorian Britain.
The book incorporates a brief social history of Preston and Whittingham Hospital as a lead into the establishment of the Whittingham Hospital Railway.
Winner, 2018 PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing Short-listed for the 2018 Wellcome Book Prize A Top 10 Science Book of Fall 2017, Publishers Weekly A Best History Book of 2017, The Guardian "Warning: She spares no detail!" —Erik Larson, bestselling author of Dead Wake In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters—no place for the squeamish—and surgeons, who, working before anesthesia, were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than patients’ afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn’t have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the riddle and change the course of history. Fitzharris dramatically reconstructs Lister’s career path to his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection and could be countered by a sterilizing agent applied to wounds. She introduces us to Lister’s contemporaries—some of them brilliant, some outright criminal—and leads us through the grimy schools and squalid hospitals where they learned their art, the dead houses where they studied, and the cemeteries they ransacked for cadavers. Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.
During the 1830s British hospitals were a far cry from the standard of healthcare we expect today. With a lack of institutions to cater for the seriously ill, those who did receive treatment would not necessarily benefit from being hospitalized, as the care available was hardly an improvement on being nursed at home. The Victorian period saw a vast growth in the number of hospitals in Britain and these infirmaries became increasingly involved with the education of health care and medical professions. Yet despite the growing role of hospitals, there were wide variations in the quality of medical services available. This book charts the changes that took place in the Victorian era and explores the different types of hospitals that were available, from the celebrated specialist institutions served by famous surgeons to the appalling workhouse infirmaries where the patients were looked after by untrained pauper nurses. Illustrated with black and white drawings and photographs of the buildings, beds, waiting rooms and even ambulances that served the Victorian people, this book is a fascinating insight into the different healthcare available to the rich and the poor, and the advances in surgery and nursing that closed the gap between the 1830s hospital and the establishments that we are familiar with today.
“A fascinating insight into the country’s most famous asylum for criminals” which reveals Victorian England’s care and management of the mentally ill (Your Family Tree). On 27 May 1863, three coaches pulled up at the gates of a new asylum, built amongst the tall, dense pines of Windsor Forest. Broadmoor’s first patients had arrived. In Broadmoor Revealed, Mark Stevens writes about what life was like for the criminally insane, over one hundred years ago. From fresh research into the Broadmoor archives, Mark has uncovered the lost lives of patients whose mental illnesses led them to become involved in crime. Discover the five women who went on to become mothers in Broadmoor, giving birth to new life when three of them had previously taken it. Find out how several Victorian immigrants ended their hopeful journeys to England in madness and disaster. And follow the numerous escapes, actual and attempted, as the first doctors tried to assert control over the residents. As well as bringing the lives of forgotten patients to light, this thrilling book reveals new perspectives on some of the hospital’s most famous Victorian residents: Edward Oxford, the bar boy who shot at Queen Victoria. Richard Dadd, the brilliant artist and murderer of his own father. William Chester Minor, veteran of the American Civil War who went on to play a key part in the first Oxford English Dictionary. Christiana Edmunds, The Chocolate Cream Poisoner and frustrated lover from Brighton. “Detailed and thoughtful.” —Times Literary Supplement “It challenges preconceptions about mental illness and public reaction to shocking crimes.” —Bracknell Forest Standard
This collection of essays explores the rise of scientific medicine and its impact on Victorian popular culture. Chapters include an examination of Charles Dickens's involvement with hospital funding, concerns over milk purity and the theatrical portrayal of drug addiction, plus a whole section devoted to the representation of medicine in crime fiction. This is an interdisciplinary study involving public health, cultural studies, the history of medicine, literature and the theatre, providing new insights into Victorian culture and society.