Stowupland's Health Care - treatments and provision
Today we expect our health care providers to hold specific paper qualifications but in the past things were a bit less regulated.
See also Stowupland Nurses , physicians, sight care, dentists or chemists. Sometimes their stories overlap.
In ‘As I Remember It, the Rev Brame shares some interesting knowledge of some local early 20th century people who may not have have had formal qualifications but provided an essential service to the local community.
His neighbour in Church Walk was a Rosie Nunn, who was always called in to deal with medical emergencies. He described that ‘although she would not talk about experiences‘ in Africa it was evident ‘from the medical equipment she brought back, as well as her practical knowledge and expertise , that she had had some sort of nursing function in the British Army‘ (in the Boer war) p. 88).
Diseases & Hospital Care
Before the NHS treatments for ailments were much less regimented. To a large extent it was left to the individual to seek out their own care. Then, as now, major surgical interventions required a journey out of Stowupland.
In 1859, Bury Free Press published a letter from Stowupland resident, Mrs Robinson, endorsing the efficaciousness of Madame Cavania’s Pills. She had resorted to the mail order market as conventional medicine had failed her, ‘my doctor told me no man on earth could cure me.’
In 1885 Small Pox was around. It was proposed that a house near Stow Union be used as an Isolation Unit. {January 1885, Bury and Suffolk Standard}
In the 1930s Ruth Brame received innovative treatment for a thyroid condition.
Not sure of the date (possibly in the 1930s) but in his As I Remember It, the Rev Brame tells us that his cousin Dorrie (daughter of Alfred Robinson), following a diagnosis of advanced cancer of the bowel had a colostomy. ‘at that time a new procedure…leaving her with a bag of faeces which she had to empty and dispose of frequently. that was a very unladylike arrangement that she hated.’ Sadly it was too much for her and she is thought to have committed suicide.
Stow Lodge, was formerly the House of Industry in Onehouse, but by the 1930s it had had a new lease of life as a local hospital.
Infectious Diseases
A press report in February 1886 tells us that diphtheria was ‘prevalent in Stowupland. Issac Diaper, living on the Green, had 4 children affected, 2 of whom died.
Dealing with cases of diphtheria and poor living arrangements.
