Page 14 - Smallwood Hospital

Redditch Heritage Smallwood Hospital

involuntarily unable to look after their bodily needs. Thus, nursing consisted of feeding,
toileting and helping with personal hygiene. 16

The nurses mentioned in the 1832 minutes were Miss Freeman, Harriet Louch, Mrs.
Osborne, Mrs. James Prescott, Mary Purcell, nurse Robinson, Mrs Edward Wilkes, and
Han. Whateman. Of course, the nurses themselves were put at risk. It was noted in the
st
entry of 1 October 1832 that the nurse for Elizabeth Jones was later afflicted with cholera.
The details of individual patients revealed that Hannah Whateman was a nurse at George
White’s, and that both George White’s son and Hannah Whateman died from cholera at the
end of October 1832.

Draught, pills and brandy

The minutes noted that Mr. Parsons, an inspector of cholera cases for Birmingham, visited
Redditch on and strongly recommended a dispensary for bowel complaints. The Worcester
Herald reported that hand bills were extensively circulated, urging the poor to apply
immediately for assistance ‘on being attacked with the slightest disorder of the bowels’. 17
Unfortunately, the poor were those least likely to be able to read and would have relied on
word of mouth. The Minutes of the Local Board of Health in 1832 included the recipe for a
‘Cholera Draught’:

A teaspoonful of spirit of lavender
Ditto of Salvolatile 18
30 drops of Laudanum
A Drachm of Soda made into a Draught with warm water.

This did no harm as the lavender soothed, the laudanum (an opiate) calmed the diarrhoea and
the soda helped to replace lost salts, but not to the extent required. The patients in 1832 often
19
died of dehydration, as it was almost impossible for them to retain sufficient fluid.
Measures taken in the belief or hope that they would prevent the onset of cholera included
‘Morison’s pills’ and brandy. Edwin Thornton of Astwood Bank remembered 1832:

The cholera epidemic which broke out in Redditch in the year 1832, I very well remember. A
great number of persons died – 50 or more in the three months of September, October and
November – and much consternation naturally prevailed in the Needle District. Much of those
persons who died of the disease were interred in the burial ground of the “Old Chapel” in the
Abbey Meadows. At this juncture, a specific for the disease appeared, under the cognomen of
“Morison’s Pills”, and an unprecedented sale of these pills was the result. Almost everybody

16
Dingwall, R., A. M. Rafferty & C. Webster (2002) An Introduction to the Social History of Nursing. London,
Routledge
17
Worcester Herald 20 October 1832.
18
Salvolatile or sal volatile was a solution of ammonium carbonate, often with lavender, once used as a
restorative in fainting (smelling-salts).
19
Available at http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/webbsredditch [Accessed February 2013]

Page: 13