Catalogue

This three-page document records a significant part that Ether played at the for North Staffs Infirmary at Etruria before which those requiring amputations went through the most agonising surgery with only alcohol as a way of lessening the pain as no anaesthetic had been discovered. Whilst searching the pages of the Staffordshire Advertiser for a totally different subject I came across a most interesting article relating to the first use of ether vapour as an anaesthetic for performing pain free operations as early as 1846 at what was the first North Staffs Infirmary at Etruria before the new one was built in Hartshill in1866.

This story tells how it was a dentist who observed a fellow dentist use nitrous oxide, or “laughing gas,” as aesthetic for a medical demonstration. Unfortunately, the patient awoke while under the aesthetic and he was booed off the stage. After Morton observed this, he consulted a fellow a chemist who suggested using sulfuric ether as anaesthesia for surgery.

For those studying medicine this is a factual story of its very first recorded use at Etruria in Stoke-on-Trent.

The title of the building over the entrance door reads – Parish Hospital of Stoke-upon-Trent 1842 and thousands must have passed its doors every day without a glance in that direction. Now the building is a listed Grade II to ensure its preservation as part of the original workhouse complex.

It was built because of the need for a hospital, not just for inmates of the workhouse, but also the people of Stoke who had nowhere to go for any form of treatment. It is now used as offices. An advertisement was placed for tenders in the Potteries Mercury to build a hospital, the first to be erected in the Borough of Stoke. The article gives a whole list of items require in the specification. During the first world war it was set apart as a military hospital and a number of photographs have survived of this time and included in the article.

Full details of its early life and the types of treatment offered is well worth a read and as such an interesting piece for the early years of hospitals.

The inspectors reports identified Penkhull where several privies, were imperfectly covered with stone slabs and full and overflowing, the liquids running over the ground or down the gardens.
Stoke town complained of the water supply of Penkhull was also a serious problem because of its height and reported that it had little pressure to work the pumps in the case of a house fire. Other parts of the township are included such Boothen which is described as entirely neglected with regards to the removal of nuisances, and the drainage is defective. Privy nuisances abound everywhere throughout the hamlet.

Filthy, unsanitary areas of Pool Dam and Seabridge of Newcastle like in 1872? describes areas of Newcastle under Lyme as filthy, unsanitary areas of Pool Dam and Seabridge perhaps of Newcastle like in 1872. Mainly small cottages and hovels all occupied at the time and occupied by the poor population of the town. It was reported to be entirely neglected by the Newcastle authorities with a filthy sewage stream or brook about ten feet wide running through the area of Pool. In time of flooding the water from the stream rose at least eighteen inches to flood nearby properties and in some of the adjoining houses together with the condition of the cesspools and privies loaded with excrement, leaking and horribly offensive, give rise to a large number of complaints from many of the inhabitants and classed as disgraceful.

The water supply was from wells sunk into the ground along saturated with the filth of generations upon generations of inhabitants. Some of these wells are said to be dry many times during the year. The attention of the Newcastle Corporation was reported as paying no attention to the area nor enforcing the rules regarding sanitation etc.

The main problem was that from 1738 the populations of the district had increased causing additional issues of water and sanitation. The areas covered for the stats are:- Tunstall, Burslem, Sneyd, Rushton Grange, Hanley and Shelton, Penkhull, Boothen, Stoke, Fenton and Longton and Lane End.

This report is a perfect study for colleges or people interested in Social History. Three x A4 pages.

The Potteries, as an industrial conurbation consisting mainly of tightly knit groups of hovels, no sanitation, no clean running water and loads of cesspits plus the constant pollution caused by its native industry. Smallpox became almost a never-ending pandemic with no cure, the problem with the sick and dying became an unsolvable problem and the cause then still a mystery. It was not until 1798 that Edward Jenner discovered that a vaccination could prevent smallpox, but the reality was to get people, especially children vaccinated in the 19^th century.

Stoke-on-Trent did not escape the infections, in fact it suffered badly because of its poor cramped accommodation, mostly owned by pottery manufacturers for their workers. For the vast majority of those infected the only accommodation was the workhouse where accommodation was limited to just a few wooden huts with a limited number of beds separated some distance from the main buildings. Care was provided by the odd female inmate who had suffered the disease previously and therefore immune from in getting it again. For this they would receive a payment of a few shillings or a half-bottle of gin. However, the one thing both had in common as the only way to stop its advancement was isolation.

So, from this position came the thought of Isolation Hospitals and the towns of Fenton, Stoke and Hanley combined to solve the problem. Longton did not join them. From this came the search for land isolated which was the all-important factor and finally accepted a large plot in Eaves Lane, Bucknall.

Through the years it treated thousands of patients for the districts who supported it. Later it became a hospital that catered for infectious dieses and finally a hospital for elderly people. Now it has become a large housing estate and all signs of its previous life no longer exists.

An important study for those researching early medicine and treatments in industrial towns.