| Description |
1 online resource (1 PDF (xi, 298 pages)) |
| Series |
Rochester studies in medical history |
|
Rochester studies in medical history.
|
| Contents |
Introduction : pauperism and sickness -- From acute illness to chronic disability -- Segregating fever patients -- Controlling disorderly behavior -- Day-to-day doctoring -- Medical therapies -- Poor law nursing -- "Every care and kindness" : the standard of workhouse medicine |
| Summary |
England's New Poor Law (1834) transformed medical care in ways that have long been overlooked, or denigrated, by historians. Sickness in the Workhouse challenges these assumptions through a close examination of two urban workhouses in the west midlands from the passage of the New Poor Law until the outbreak of World War I. By closely analyzing the day-to-day practice of workhouse doctors and nurses, author Alistair Ritch questions the idea that medical care was invariably of poor quality and brought little benefit to patients. Medical staff in the workhouses labored under severe restraints and grappled with the immense health issues facing their patients. Sickness in the Workhouse brings to life this hidden group of workhouse staff and highlights their significance within the local health economy. Among other things, as the author notes, workhouses needed to provide medical care for nonpaupers, such as institutional isolation facilities for those with infectious diseases. This groundbreaking book highlights these doctors and nurses in order to illuminate our understanding of this significant yet little understood area of poor law history |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [277]-292) and index |
| Notes |
Description based on print version record |
| Subject |
Poor laws -- History -- 19th century
|
|
Almshouses -- England -- History -- 19th century
|
|
Poor -- Medical care -- England -- History -- 19th century
|
|
MEDICAL / History.
|
|
Almshouses
|
|
Poor laws
|
|
Poor -- Medical care
|
|
England
|
| Genre/Form |
History
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| ISBN |
9781787447035 |
|
1787447030 |
|
