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13
Extract from an account of the House of Recovery, established by the
board of health at Manchester, by Thomas Bernard, Esq. pp 098-115 dated 6th
November 1797.
In May 1796, an house, for the prevention of infectious fevers, was opened upon
private subscription, at Manchester, by the Board of Health there, and placed
under the inspection of a medical committee, consisting of the medical gentlemen
of the Infirmary.
Regulations for the Admission of Patients into the House of Recovery.
1st - That the physicians of the Infirmary shall be authorized to give one or
two shillings, from the funds of this institution, (by a ticket to the secretary
of the Board of Health) to the person who shall furnish the earliest information
of the appearance of fever in any poor family, within the limits of their
respective districts.
2nd - That as soon as the secretary has received this ticket, he shall
apply, or take care that application be made, to some Trustee of the Board of
Health, living within the district, and who is a subscriber to the Infirmary,
for an immediate recommendation of the sick person as an home patient.
3rd - That such patients, as the physicians shall deem
peculiar objects of recommendation, either on account of their extreme poverty,
or of the close and crowded state of their habitations, shall be conveyed in a
sedan chair (provided with a moveable washing lining) and kept for the sole
purpose, and distinguished by proper marks, to the House of Recovery.
4th - That the physicians shall be requested to form the necessary regulations,
for the domestic government of the families of the home patients, afflicted with
fever.
5th - That a reward, to the amount of -- -- shall be given to the heads of the
family, after the cessation of the fever, on condition that they have faithfully
observed the rules prescribed for cleanliness, ventilation, and the prevention
of infection, amongst their neighbours. This reward shall be doubled, in cases
of extra-ordinary danger, and when the attentions have been adequate and
successful.
6th - That, after the visitation of fever has ceased in any poor dwelling house,
the sum of -- -- or a sufficient sum shall be allowed (to be expended under the
direction of an inspector) for white-washing and cleansing the premises, and for
the purchase of new bed-clothes, or apparel, in lieu of such as it may be deemed
necessary to destroy, to obviate the continuance or propagation of fever.
7th - Than an inspector shall be appointed, in each district of the Infirmary,
to aid the execution, and to enforce the observance of the foregoing
regulations. And that the gentlemen of the Strangers' Friend Society shall be
requested to undertake this office.
Internal Regulations for the House of Recovery.
1st - Every patient, on admission, shall change his
infectious for clean linen; the face and hands are to be washed clean with
lukewarm water, and the lower extremities fomented.
2nd - The clothes brought into the house by patients shall be properly purified
and aired.
3rd - All linen and bed-clothes, immediately on being removed from the bodies of
the patients, shall be immersed in cold water before they are carried down
stairs.
4th - All discharges from the patients shall be removed from the wards without
delay.
5th - The floors of the wards shall be carefully washed twice a week, and near
the beds every day.
6th - Quick-lime shall be slaked in large open vessels in every ward, and
renewed whenever it ceases to bubble on the affusion of water. The walls and
roofs shall be frequently washed with this mixture.
7th - No relation or acquaintance shall be permitted to visit the wards, without
particular orders from one of the physicians.
8th - No strangers shall be admitted into the wards, and the nurses shall be
strictly enjoined not to receive unnecessary visits.
9th - No linen or clothes shall be removed from the House of Recovery, till they
have been washed, aired, and freed from infection.
10th - No convalescents shall be discharged from the House, without a
consultation of the physician.
11th - The nurses and servants of the House shall have no direct communication
with the Infirmary; but shall receive the medicines in the room already
appropriated to messengers from the home patients.
12th - The Committee of the Strangers' Friend Society shall be requested to
undertake the office of inspecting the House of Recovery.
13th - A weekly report of the patients, admitted and discharged, shall be
published in the Manchester newspapers.
14th - When a patient dies in the wards, the body shall be removed as soon as
possible, into a room appropriated to that use; it shall then be wrapped in a
pitched cloth; and the friends shall be desired to proceed to the interment as
early as is consistent with propriety.
15th - All provisions and attendance, for the patients in this House of Recovery
shall be provided from the funds of this Institution without any communication
with the Infirmary.
The first annual meeting of the Trustees was held on the 27th May 1796, the
President, T B Bayley, Esq in the chair; when an asylum capable of containing
from 15 to 25 beds for patients, was conceived to be sufficient for the purposes
of the institution.
The circumstances of the first patients removed to the House of Recovery, all
tended to prove the truth of the position, that the most contagious and
destructive fevers, by which manufacturing and other crowded towns had been
afflicted, had proceeded from individual infection; and that if, upon the
appearance of the fever, the poor patient had been removed to a clean well
ventilated room, and dismissed after recovery with clothes properly purified,
much disease and misery would have been prevented, and many lives saved.
As the statements of the circumstances of the first patients that were admitted
into the House of Recovery, may tend to shew the sufferings of the poor, where
no house of recovery is prepared for them, I shall state them from the
Physician's reports, inserted in the minutes of the Board of Health.
pp 105-111 Patients Named - information abridged.
Mary Parkinson aged 20 2nd daughter of Ann Parkinson, lodging with her mother
and sister, at James Rushton's (who rents a garret, No 50 Great Turner Street)
seized 17th inst
Mary West, the wife of a soldier belonging to the Manks Fencibles infected with
fever whilst attending her husband who had recovered. She was ordered to join
the regiment, she was refused admittance as the signs of fever were appearing.
Jeremiah Bowcock, removed from a family living at 77,
Newton Lane The disease was introduced into this house by Bowcock's brother who
had been turned into the streets when labouring under typhus.
Margaret Billington, wife of a Private in the York Fencibles, was removed on the
10th day of her illness from No 8 Pump Street. Fumigations with nitrous gas were
employed, according to the practice of His Majesty's Naval Hospitals.
John Owen, Robert Williams, and William Williams from a house in Salford where 6
persons lay ill with fever.
William Lomax, a child from a house in Longworth Street where a family of 5
persons has only 1 bed-room, the father had died of fever.
Samuel Gould, from a large family with whom he lodged, his fever is of a very
dangerous nature.
The beneficial effects of the House of Recovery, which has not yet been opened a
year and a half, are almost beyond belief. The facts are, however, established
by authentic documents. -
The number of fever patients (as entered in the Physician's book at the
Infirmary) in Portland Street, Silver Street, and the other streets in that pile
of buildings, in the neighbourhood of the House of Recovery, for the two
preceding years and 8 months, were, 1,256, something more than the average of
400 a year; - those in the same district from July 1796 to July 1797 were
only 26, of these there were in July 1796 only 5 such patients; in August but
one, in September 1796 none; and in the four last months from March to July
1797, only one fever patient.
In the report of the Weekly Board of the Infirmary at Manchester notice is taken
of the extraordinary effects of the House of Recovery, in diminishing the
proportion of fever patients in the Infirmary. It appears from the Physician's
books of the Infirmary that in January 1796, (before the establishment of the
House of Recovery) the whole number of the home patients at the Manchester
Infirmary, was 296, of which 226 were cases of fever; and that in January 1797,
the number of home patients was 161, of these only 57 were cases of fever.
From the opening of the House of Recovery, on the 19th May 1796 to 2nd November
1797, 542 fever patients have been admitted. Of these 465 have been cured and
sent home; 48 have died, and 29 were, on the 2nd instant remaining in the house.
The account therefore up to 2nd instant stands thus :-
Cured and discharged
465
Dead
48
Remaining in the House
20
Total admitted
542
But the proportional number of cures in the last half year (a benefit that will
probably increase) is greater than that of the preceding period; because the
poor are now induced to apply in the earlier stages of the fever, when medicine
can be applied with more effect.
The account from the 8th May 1797 to 2nd Instant stands
thus :-
Cured and discharged
141
Dead
8
Remaining in the House
29
Total
178
Many of the opponents of the House of Recovery in
Manchester, are become its active friends; and that, which was at first an act
of philanthropy in a few individuals, is now supported by the good wishes and
contribution of the greater part of the respectable inhabitants at Manchester.
Other consequences have attended the extraordinary success of this institution
:- viz:
1st - that the Board of Health does now receive patients in fevers to the House
of Recovery, from beyond the districts for which it was first established; by
which means the environs of the town are also cleared of the epidemic fever.
2nd - that the Infirmary also now receives a variety of
patients, which they were obliged to refuse, when the Infirmary and town were
oppressed by the enormous crowd of fever patients; whose claims seemed to
supersede those of persons not afflicted with contagious diseases
3rd - that in the year 1796, there has been a decrease
of near 400 in the bills of mortality at Manchester.
Similar establishments have been successfully made at
Chester, Stockport, and some other places. One is forming at Liverpool. For a
detail of the principles and rules to be adopted in country towns, to check the
progress of disease and infection, the reader is referred to a very excellent
pamphlet by the Rev Sir William Clerke, Bt, Rector of Bury, Lancashire. It is
published by Johnson, St Paul's Churchyard and by Edwards of Pall Mall.
Observations.
A Board of Health and a House of Recovery, upon the plan of that at Manchester,
would be useful in all towns; but particularly among manufactures, where the
poor are incapable of receiving proper medical relief, in their own close and
noisome dwellings; and where they are peculiarly liable to communicate
contagion, not only to their own family, and to those who dwell under the same
roof, but to the neighbourhood. A Board of Health, to prevent the spreading of
contagious diseases among the poor, is peculiarly applicable to a crowded town;
but it is not exclusively so. It would be very useful in country villages and
country neighbourhoods; to assist and stimulate the overseers in that part of
their duty, which relates to the health of the poor, and to prevent the progress
of infectious disorders. It is peculiarly in the prevention of disease and
contagion, that the benefits return with increase upon the benefactor, and that
the merciful receive mercy.dated 6th November 1797.
Source:
The Reports of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the
Comforts of the Poor. Vol 1 1798 446 pp
Submitted by Alan Longbottom
Page updated August 06, 2007
by Rossbret
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13 House of Recovery