Shared experiences: getting together with custodians of health archives and records

Today we’ve been delighted to welcome members of the Health Archives and Records Group (HARG) to LHSA. HARG was established in the late 1980s and acts as a representative body for archivists and records managers working in the health sector in the UK and Ireland. For more information see their website.

Members from across Scotland and England converged on Edinburgh University Main Library’s meeting room suite for an afternoon of productive discussion, which ranged from ways to reinvigorate HARG through the website/social media and the issues associated with digitisation, to possibilities for project funding and creating catalogues with built-in links to related material. We also found out about the online catalogue for the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (http://archives.rcpe.ac.uk/calmView/) – a great new resource for research in the history of medicine.

Once the official business of the meeting was over, we offered those attending a tour. Starting off in the Centre for Research Collections reception area (to show off the fabulous reading room facilities), we moved on to the Viewing Room (where the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Royal Charter, dating from 1736, was on display) and the Conservation Studio to see some architectural plans of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital undergoing treatment.

It was a fantastic opportunity to talk through shared issues relating to the long-term preservation of, and access to, health records and to strengthen professional contacts with those working in our sector: an afternoon well spent!

Visit to Craig House

Yesterday the staff of LHSA was privileged to visit Craig House, the neo-gothic mansion built to house private patients of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, and opened in 1894. It was sold to Napier University in the 1990s and functions as one of their campuses although it has recently been sold to developers. Having worked closely with the plans, photographs, patient and administrative records of the Hospital, it was with great excitement that we headed to the site to be shown around by a member of the Napier University Press Office.

The Grand Hall, c.1900

Despite its change of use in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the building is remarkably similar to how it looked in the photos taken over 100 years ago: it has lost none of its atmosphere or grandeur (especially on a dreich Edinburgh afternoon!). The Grand Hall is immediately recognisable and remains an impressive room with high ceilings, chandeliers, two large fireplaces and polished floor, although the original furniture is long gone! We were led on a fascinating tour back through time into many of the wings, along corridors, up winding staircases into the staff quarters, and past beautifully-tiled walls, stained-glass doorways and intricately-carved door frames. Even some of the original radiators are still in existence! We continued our tour into the grounds to see the other buildings: Queen’s Craig, South Craig and Bevan from where we admired the views back towards the City. It wasn’t hard to imagine the Hospital as a peaceful retreat designed by the third physician superintendent of the Hospital, Thomas Clouston, to resemble a Victorian country house.

 Photographs were taken of Craig House, and the exterior of the other buildings, to capture them as they are today before redevelopment. These will be added to the Archive so that this phase of their story is not lost before the next phase begins. We’ll be adding some of the photos to our Flickr page in due course but for a preview, check our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/lhsa.edinburgh.

The Grand Hall, 2012

TB drawings

We reported last month on a drawing found amongst the Alexander Miles case notes and this week we feature some more drawings from this case note collection. They are highly detailed drawings from 1919 showing the progress in treatment of a patient’s right elbow which contained tuberculosis (TB) in the joint. It is not known whether the drawings were used in teaching, but their discovery alongside the case notes would indicate that they were used solely for the purpose of treatment.

TB is a highly contagious disease, usually affecting the lungs but which can attack other parts of the body. It is spread through the air by coughing, sneezing or spitting. It was very common in Edinburgh throughout the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries, with the poor condition of tenements and overcrowding leading to its spread throughout the population. The health of those affected declined slowly over a period of months and years, if untreated, meaning that they were able to move around the community spreading the infection.

Drawing of TB in joint found in Miles case notes

Dr Robert Philip’s famous ‘Edinburgh Scheme’ resulted in a decline in deaths from TB from 1899 onwards by identifying those with the disease and preventing its spread. Before the discovery of antibiotics, sanatoriums, such as the Royal Victoria Hospital, were built where early onset TB patients could recuperate with plenty of sunshine and fresh air whilst being kept separate from the rest of the population. Colonies such as Southfield and Polton opened to provide recovering patients with work in an environment conducive to their health. A concentrated effort was deemed essential to eradicate the disease and in 1958, a mass x-ray screening of the population for the disease took place. As a result of improvements in treatment from the 1950s there has been a steep decline in TB cases although there are still around 400 cases in Scotland every year.

Drawing showing progress of treatment of TB in joint

Old badges; new website

Last week’s blog touched on the long-term transfer of some of our historic nursing and hospital badges to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh as part of a new installation celebrating the role of unsung heroes in healthcare. This saw a two-year project come to fruition so we thought it was worthy of another blog post and some more pictures!

The installation is outside Outpatient Department 3 in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and has three cases set into the wall displaying historic badges alongside contemporary artworks that were inspired by them and the oral history testimony collected from current and retired nurses. A panel produced by noted enamel artist Elizabeth Turrell and some smaller pieces with quotes from nurses are also on display.

 One of the three cases 

Elizabeth Turrell's panel

The installation was launched on 30 March with representatives from the project partners, nurses who had contributed their oral histories (some of whom were wearing their own badges!) and Royal Infirmary staff. It was a great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of the project with them.

The launch of 'Unsung Heroes'

For more information please see the LHSA website, which has just been re-vamped to reflect our social media work better. We now have a brand new home page with a display of images to showcase various aspects of our work and collections, and a new social media page with direct access to our twitterfall and most recent blog posts. We hope that you’ll take a look!

Records on the road

With the weather being so beautiful this week, we thought it only fair for some of our collections items to leave the dark, cool store rooms and enjoy some time in the (UV, temperature and humidity controlled) light. Along with the usual readers consulting items, we’ve had a visit from MSc students studying Medicine & Society in Modern Britain who were treated to a look at some of our great Rosslynlee Hospital records during their seminar. Not content with a mere afternoon away from the stores, some records will be out for considerably longer as they feature in two exhibitions opening this weekend. Two of our Andrew Kennedy drawings will sit alongside other masterpieces from University Collections in the second of this series of exhibitions. Andrew Kennedy (1825-1899) was a patient at various Scottish asylums during his lifetime, including the Royal Edinburgh Hospital whose Physician Superintendent collected 34 of his drawings. Masterpieces II, which runs from 31^st March to 30^th June in the Exhibition Room at Edinburgh University Library, features a varied selection including Alexander Fleming’s penicillin mould, a Picasso, 9^th century fragments of the Qur’an and a 16^th century violin. For more information, see www.ed.ac.uk.

Andrew Kennedy drawing: Assalfoot

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Volunteers badge

Finally, a selection of our nursing badges have gone on long-term loan as part of the Unsung Heroes exhibition at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (Out Patient Department 3). They feature alongside artwork created by contemporary jewellers which was inspired by the badges, and oral history testimony collected as part of the project. For more information see http://nursingbadges.wordpress.com/.

A noteworthy case note

LHSA’s case note collections are steadily being looked through to check they are in the correct order. During the ordering of the Alexander Miles collection, there have been several interesting finds, of which one is presented for this week’s blog. The Miles collection covers 1909-1924, 15 years being the statutory period for a doctor to be in charge of wards at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE).

On the reverse of a case note dated 1910, was found a line drawing of an operation in progress. Alexander Miles (1865-1953) worked in wards 5 and 6 of the RIE at this time, carrying out general surgery. At a table in the foreground on the left, an assistant is ready to pass medical equipment across when it is needed. An interesting detail is that all of the staff are wearing gloves except for the man who appears to be carrying out the surgery. Harley Williams noted that Alexander Miles operated without gloves and with his sleeves rolled up, so it is possible that this is him. The drawing is not signed, but presumably it was drawn from life by someone watching the operation and who only had the patient’s case note to write on! 

Drawing thought to show Alexander Miles operating

Reference

J.A. Ross, The Edinburgh School of Surgery after Lister, Churchill Livingstone, Edinburgh, London and New York, 1978, pp91-93

A masterpiece of patient art

Two drawings from LHSA’s collection of patient art by Andrew Kennedy (1825-1899) will be going on display shortly as part of Edinburgh University’s exhibition ‘Masterpieces II’.

Kennedy was a patient at the Glasgow Royal Asylum and other Scottish hospitals in the second half of the nineteenth century and produced a number of drawings that were found in the papers of Dr Thomas Clouston, Physician Superintendent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum. They may have been sent to Dr Clouston as indicative examples of mental illness, and are certainly a window into the patient perspective on mental health care of the late-1800s. (A couple of images of Kennedy’s work are available on the LHSA website.)

The exhibition opens in April and preparations are well underway. The items that will be included were chosen a few months ago, and finishing touches have just been made to the captions and the graphics for the back of each display case.

Yesterday, a selection of the items that will be exhibited, including the Kennedy drawings, were laid out in our viewing room for a press call. Photographers from a number of papers and press agencies were given the opportunity to take images for publicity purposes, including some posed shots with several of our Centre for Research Collections colleagues!

Collection items displayed in the viewing room, the Kennedy drawings are in the middle of the right hand side of the table

Joe, the Centre for Research Collections Rare Books Librarian, models a first edition of Isaac Newton's 'Principia'

‘Masterpieces II’ opens in early April in Edinburgh University Main Library Exhibition Room, 30 George Square. Entry is free. Watch this space, and our Facebook page and tweets, for further details.