Join us in welcoming Dan to the George Marshall Medical Museum!

We’re so lucky to have accepted a volunteer offer from Dan, who joins us as a District Training Lead for St John Ambulance, amateur Nurse Historian and a former nurse, to boot! He’ll be helping us to engage our visitors and online audiences with nursing history (he loves badges!), and with a focus on First Aid and St John Ambulance. Watch this space for activities and displays. Thanks Dan!

"As a long-standing lover of all things medical, I recently visited the GMMM and I was smitten! Coming from a former nursing background, I hope to support Louise with expanding our nursing history archive and hopefully increasing the reach and spread of this topic of history."

"TRAGIC MISTAKE OR NEGLIGENCE AT POWICK HOSPITAL" GUEST BLOG BY CATHY BROAD

In 1921, a strange incident occurred at Powick Mental Hospital…

Nine male patients were poisoned by ingesting belladonna. Three of them died, and an inquest into these deaths found the doctor who prescribed the medicine not guilty of any misdeed. Eight days later a fourth patient died, and a second inquest into his death reached the same verdict.

During the first inquest, which was reported in both Berwick’s Worcester Journal and the Worcester Herald, both published on Saturday 17 September 1921, Dr Henry Fenton, the medical superintendent at the asylum, testified that on the morning of 14 September, his attention was called to the nine patients. He called the doctor who had been in charge the previous night, Dr Alexander O’Flaherty, and together they examined the patients. Dr Fenton diagnosed them as suffering from belladonna poisoning. Two of them, George Newman and Herbert Peasley, were comatose. A third, John Jones, was not as badly affected. These were the three who died.

Berrow’s Worcester Journal, Saturday 17 September, 1921

Dr Fenton testified that he knew the patients had been prescribed purgative draughts the night before, and asked to see the bottles used. He concluded that they had been given a mixture of glycerine and belladonna, and immediately ordered that the patients be given emetics and antidotes.

To his credit, Dr O’Flaherty admitted his responsibility, but claimed that he had made an honest mistake. He had intended to give the patients a purgative of glycerine and cascara, but told Dr Fenton that he must have given them glycerine and belladonna instead. He testified that he saw the abbreviation ‘Glyc’ on a bottle and assumed that it was the glycerine and cascara mixture. He claimed not to have noticed that the bottle was labelled ‘Poison’ as it contained glycerine and belladonna.

The Coroner asked why he didn’t look closely at the bottle to ascertain its contents. The doctor replied that he did not expect that glycerine and belladonna would be used. The Coroner asked to examine the bottles, and the report mentions that apart from the labels and the level of the contents, the bottles were identical. The Coroner suggested that if the glycerine and belladonna had been in a ribbed bottle, it would have been immediately obvious that it contained poison and would not have been used. Dr Fenton agreed with this statement.

In his instructions to the jury, the Coroner said that they must decide whether Dr O’Flaherty had taken due caution in making up the purgatives, in which case the deaths were due to misadventure, or whether he was guilty of gross negligence, in which case he would be guilty of manslaughter. The jury took only a few minutes to bring in a verdict of Death by Misadventure.

 On 21 September the fourth patient, George Frederick Bokenham, died. An inquest into his death was reported in both Berwick’s Worcester Journal and the Worcester Herald, both published on Saturday 1 October 1921. The Coroner went through the incident that had been the subject of the first inquest, and questioned the doctor who had performed an autopsy on the deceased. It was revealed that death was caused by pneumonia, which the doctor said was probably accelerated by the belladonna poisoning.

The jury went to inspect the dispensary, and closely questioned the assistant medical director, Dr Romer, who was unofficially in charge of the dispensary.  Dr Romer had criticised the arrangement of the dispensary, but as he was not officially responsible, he did not feel able to insist on better security. The jury again brought in a verdict of Death by Misadventure, but added that there should be better supervision of the dispensary.

Note from the inquest held about George Frederick Bokenham’s death. Image taken from the patient’s mental hospital notes

At the time it was not mandatory to keep poisons in ribbed bottles for easy identification. There had been a Bill for Prevention of Accidental Poisoning in 1863, but it had failed to pass into law, although many institutions did take the precaution of using ribbed bottles. One cannot judge history by today’s standards, but one cannot help wishing that those in charge at Powick Asylum had taken similar precautions.

With thanks to Cathy Broad for researching and writing this article.

 

My Work Experience at Worcester's Medical Museums- By Ned Tranmer

I’m Ned, and over the past week I have been undertaking some work experience at both the George Marshall Medical Museum as well as the Infirmary Museum. I decided to apply for work experience here due to my passion for history and as, in the next few years, I am thinking of doing a History degree at university. Additionally, it was enjoyable for me to refresh my knowledge on medical history as, in GCSE History, I was lucky enough to be able to study it as one of my topics and it was one of my favourites on the GCSE syllabus.

On Monday and Tuesday this week, I partook in my work experience at the George Marshall Medical Museum in the Charles Hastings Education Centre (a man who I would become much more familiar with as the week went on). I arrived to the enthusiasm of the curator of the museum, Louise, who gave me a quick tour of the museum as well as the rest of the building. It was incredibly interesting to see all the displays on show, as I had never visited before, and, in particular, I loved to see the display of Blossom’s horns – the cow that Edward Jenner first took samples of cowpox to develop the first ever vaccination – as that section of history was a major part of my GCSE course.

Over those 2 days, I was given a great overview of the responsibilities and tasks that a curator would go through on a day-to-day basis, and Louise made sure that the tasks she gave me were tailored to me and what I was most interested in. Firstly, I was given the opportunity to use a book in the records at the museum which gave an overview of the history of the WRI to research the most famous and well-known people throughout the years to have visited the hospital, either as a patient or a guest, which I used to create a small pamphlet to be made available to read in the museum. I was also taught how best to handle historical objects by Louise as well as being able to sit-in on their final school visit of the year and hear the vast knowledge of both Louise, the curator, and Louise, the volunteer.

Due to a closure on Wednesday, I spent Thursday and Friday at the Infirmary Museum, on the grounds of the City Campus of the University of Worcester, with its’ curator, Harriet. Again, Harriet was incredibly welcoming and ensured that the tasks that I completed were to my liking and intriguing for me. To start with, on Thursday morning, I worked my way around the museum and its’ exhibits to create an engaging trail for visitors around the Year 6 age that ensured that they would take an interest in the displays. In the afternoon, I took a short walk with Harriet through the city centre to St. Swithun’s Church, where I got a great opportunity to sit-in on a monthly meeting of the Heritage Partnership Forum, where there were very interesting discussions taking place between representatives from many different museums in Worcester, as well as from Worcester Cathedral and the Tourist Information Centre, which helped to give me a real sense of what the world of work within this industry is like.

On the Friday, I began the day by experiencing both the Board Room of the Infirmary and the Jenny Lind Chapel, which were both fascinating, thanks to a quick tour from Harriet, before going back into the museum and taking note of which of the yes/no question boards near to the entrance of the museum had some potentially outdated data on them. Using this, I was able to research some potential new answers to these questions using data that is slightly more up to date, for example, the questions surrounding the topics of alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths, the rates of HIV acquisition and the statistics on dementia.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my week and would definitely recommend other students to take their work experience weeks at either of the George Marshall Medical Museum or the Infirmary Museum, especially if a career in heritage or history is something that interests them. That recommendation is down to how welcomed I felt by both Louise and Harriet, and I would like to thank them for not only being so accommodating to me but also for the opportunities that they gave me that I feel I may have not been given in other placements that I applied to.