Guests are welcome, and we ask that they make a donation, suggested amount £3.00.
The speakers details are below:
Iain
Hutchison is
a research associate in the Centre for the History of Medicine at the
University of Glasgow.
He
is a board member of the worldwide Disability History Association and a fellow
of the Royal Historical Society.
He
is the author of A History of Disability
in Nineteenth-Century Scotland, and
of Seeing Our History which explored
the lives of people with sight loss in Edwardian Edinburgh and Borders.
He
is currently working on an historical research project, investigating the
Scottish National Institution at Larbert, a training asylum for
mentally-impaired children. He recently completed research that evaluates the
clearance and emigration to New Brunswick of 139 people from Fair Isle in 1862.
He
was the researcher and lead author on a project to trace the social history of
Glasgow’s Royal Hospital for Sick Children, now published as Child Health in Scotland. This project
is the subject of his talk today.
An abstract of the speech follows:
In
1861, a proposal was made for the creation of a children’s hospital for
Glasgow. However, this was opposed by the directors of Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
They argued that The Royal made all the provision needed to care for children.
Underlying its objections, however, were the concerns of the Royal Infirmary
that a children’s hospital would be a strong competitor for the charitable
support on which both hospitals would depend. It was therefore more than twenty
years before the children’s hospital opened in a converted townhouse. In 1914,
the Royal Hospital for Sick Children moved to a new, purpose-built facility at
Yorkhill, and from this location it served the whole of the west of Scotland
for the next one hundred years.
This
presentation explains the struggle to provide a children’s hospital for the
industrial west. It describes the measures taken in its early years to confront
the conditions of poor housing and deprivation that were a barrier to returning
ill children to good health. This included a street dispensary where, among
other procedures, tonsils were removed with minimal formality, and a country
branch where children were nourished on rice pudding to re-equip them for
tenement life. While many historical studies of hospitals often focus on great
physicians and surgeons and their contributions to the advancement of medical
knowledge, this paper considers the healthcare provided to return sick children
through the experiences of its hard-pressed nurses.
The
presentation arises from a study of the social history of the hospital, Child
Health in Scotland. Published by Scottish History Press at £24.95, the
book is available for £20 to members and supporters of Paisley Philosophical
Institution. www.keapublishing.com;
keapublishing.scotland@gmail.com
