30 members and three visitors were treated to a sometimes gruesome description of the history of medicine by Chris Wear at a recent meeting of Nottinghamshire Environmental Association. Using medical knowledge gleaned from family members, including his father who was a GP, he described many bygone medicines and medical practices. He showed his father’s medical case, from the days when GPs still carried out regular home visits to patients, but, on advice, he had removed many of the standard medicines from the case as they are now banned substances!
His talk covered the early Greeks, when Hippocrates (born 460 BCE) was the first to recognise that illness has natural rather than supernatural causes. Medieval medicine, which developed the concept of The Humours (consisting of Blood, Phlegm, Yellow Bile and Black Bile), and early medications made up from herbs found in local woods, led to different treatments in different villages for the same medical problem. Many of the tinctures and potions were based on quite large volumes of beer as water was not fit to drink. It wasn’t until Edward Jenner (1747–1823) that modern medicine started, when he introduced vaccination for Smallpox. This was a prevalent and deadly disease at this time. This involved injecting small volumes of smallpox to try to cause mild infection and stimulate the body to prepare against it. Knowledge of bacteria and viruses was, of course, non-existent and this process killed many of the recipients.
Sir James Young Simpson, who lived and trained in Edinburgh which had – and still has – a good reputation in medical training, introduced chloroform into an operation in 1847 to act as an anaesthetic and this was quickly taken up more widely as it reduced pain and improved survival rates. It was given the royal seal of approval when Queen Victoria used it during the birth of Prince Leopold in 1853.
Chris concluded his talk by recounting the life of a young lad called Jesse Boot. Born in the poor area of Hockley in Nottingham, his father who was a farm labourer, died when Jesse was only 10 years of age. His mother, who ran a small shop in Hockley, insisted on him staying on at school to finish his education. At the age of 13 he left school and started working for his mother in her small shop – a herbalist shop. But Jesse had big ideas! The rest, they say, is history. Boots, the Chemists, was born! The Association will hold ‘The Curiosity Box Quiz’ at their meeting on Thursday 4th December at Hallcroft Community Centre, Randall Way, Retford. Looking ahead, the 8th January talk is ‘The Ecology Around Doddington Hall’ and the 5th February talk is ‘Red Fox’. Doors open at 7.10pm, with the talk starting promptly at 7.30pm. For non-members the cost of entry is £3.50 per talk, which includes a hot drink and light refreshments.
For details contact Paul Willcock (chairman and secretary) – paul@paulwillcock.com or 07581 531595 – or Adrian Blackburn (vice-chairman and treasurer) – adrian.blackburn@sky.com or 07718 766873.
New members are always very welcome to join this friendly and active group.