Dr John Fleetwood and the Body Snatchers

I have recently made a start on cataloguing the collection of Dr. John Fleetwood, which was donated to RCPI by his family in 2007. Dr Fleetwood was born in 1917 and attended Blackrock College before studying medicine at UCD. He became interested in gerontology (care of the elderly), having attended an International Gerontology conference and was instrumental in establishing the Irish Gerontological Society in 1950, of which he was an active member. He was also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and contributed regularly to the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland. Dr Fleetwood researched and wrote widely on the history of medicine. He published The History of Medicine in Ireland (1951) and The Irish Body Snatchers (1988), as well as a variety of shorter pieces on a range of topics. The Fleetwood bequest reflects his interests in gerontology and medical history, including body snatching. RCPI archive also holds a collection of papers relating to Dr Fleetwood including many of his research notes and articles, for more details click here.

Since 300 B.C. anatomists have wanted to know how the body worked, what its functions were and most importantly what was really under all that skin on a human being. Although many medical students had to content themselves with textbooks and animal dissections, some intrepid scholars braved the illegality of dissecting of a human body and made significant findings in anatomy and medicine. The growth of medical schools in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries increased the demand for cadavers for students to practice on. Those who practiced body snatching and who made a living from it were termed resurrectionists or resurrection-men. In the early 19^th century, it was common for the bodies of criminals who had been executed to be passed on to the medical schools but as the use of capital punishment receded, demand soon outstripped supply.

In Ireland during the 18^th and early 19^th century, body snatching was as prevalent as anywhere else. The first written record occurs in Faulkners Dublin Journal in May 1732, when a grave digger in a church in Suffolk Street received a prison sentence for turning a blind eye to resurrectionists and their work. The problems seem to have been mainly concentrated in Dublin where there were a number of medical schools. Cases of bodysnatching in other areas of the country did occur although they were rare. Many of the graveyards had to build watchtowers which were patrolled by armed defenders, such as Bullys Acre in Kilmainham and Cruagh, near Pine Forest. In addition, iron coffins were used or a wooden coffin was protected from being vandalised by iron bars. This was known as a mortsafe, an example of which can be found in Drumcondra church yard. In several other graveyards, early 19^th century graves have been discovered to have been covered by heavy stone slabs- no doubt to prevent the grave being robbed. On at least one occasion in Dublin the 'staggering-home' technique was used to transport a dead body from the graveyard. This involved dressing the corpse in clothes and two people supporting it on either side while pretending that the body was their drunken friend. On one occasion, two students who were stopped were found to be transporting the dead body of a woman dressed in a man's muffler and coat.

In his book, Fleetwood also recounts a story about Sir Dominic Corrigan who as a student set out on a grave robbing expedition. The grave they intended to rob was that of a labourer who had died on his way home from seasonal work in England. However, when they got there, the grave was being guarded by the man's widow. The students proceeded to guarantee the safety of the grave and took up a collection for the woman as a mark of their respect. For Corrigan's own account of his body snatching escapades click here. Bully's Acre in Kilmainham received a lot of attention from body snatchers as it was a communal burial ground and easily accessed. In 1825, a sentry captured a well known resurrectionist by the name of Thomas Tuite who was in possession of five bodies and his pockets were also found to be full of teeth. At that time a full set of teeth was worth £1 (€800 in today's money), making grave robbing, although distasteful, an extremely lucrative business.

Of course the most well known Irish body snatchers were Burke and Hare, two men from Northern Ireland who moved from grave robbing to murder in Scotland between 1827 and 1828 in order to supply fresh corpses to the medical schools. Between them, they murdered 12 people and supplied the corpses to a well known physician in the medical school in Edinburgh. After they were caught, Hare testified against his friend in order to gain immunity and William Burke was hanged in January 1829. The Burke and Hare murders directly influenced the passing of the Anatomy Act in 1832 by the Government. This allowed unclaimed bodies and those which were donated by relatives to be used for the purposes of study. It also required the licensing of anatomists. This law effectively ended the body snatching trade in Great Britain and Ireland.

Ruth Talbot

Library Intern

Puerperal Fever

As advances in medicine are made, it is sometimes easy to forget about illnesses or infections that once plagued people on a regular basis. One such infection is puerperal fever, or as it was more commonly known "childbed fever." This is a bacterial infection of the birth canal which can be contracted by a woman during childbirth. If it is left untreated, it often leads to septicaemia or peritonitis which can be fatal. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, puerperal fever was the leading cause of maternal mortality and it was an extremely common occurrence in women who had just given birth.

Dr Ignaz Semmelweis

A major cause of puerperal fever was in many instances, doctors themselves, who either did not know about, or chose not to believe in the existence of germs and bacteria. Thus, many of them did not wash their hands before attending a woman in labour. There was also a social element to this in that doctors were perceived as gentleman and a gentleman always had clean hands. Although numerous doctors spoke out and advocated hygienic practices such as washing hands with antiseptic, they were ignored. One such doctor; Ignaz Semmelweis (1818-1865) was so ridiculed that he was fired from his job, suffered a nervous breakdown and ended his days in a psychiatric institution.

In Ireland, as in every other country, the rates of puerperal fever were extremely high and numerous papers on outbreaks which occurred and on the nature of puerperal fever were published by various physicians such as Alfred M'Clintock (1821-1881), John Brenan (1768-1830) and Fleetwood Churchill (1808-1878).

Robert Collins

One physician Robert Collins (1800-1868) who became Master of the Rotunda Hospital in 1826, was a pioneer in the fight against puerperal fever. Suspecting that bad hygiene and inadequate ventilation were the main causes of the infection, Collins instituted a rigorous policy of disinfection and cleanliness of both the hospital and in particular the labour wards. Under his system, wards were used in rotation as labour wards and patients were forbidden to move between wards. Once the ward was full, no more patients were admitted until all patients had been discharged. Once empty, the ward was thoroughly cleaned and disinfected and the floor treated with chloride of lime. These policies, amongst others he set up were incredibly successful, to the point that there were no cases of maternal death from puerperal fever during the last four years of his tenure in the hospital.

 

Collin's work came to the attention of other doctors and the ill-fated Semmelweis was deeply influenced by his system and his work on the nature of the infection. Unfortunately, Collin's policies were not as rigorously enforced after his departure. The Annual Reports of the Board of Superintendence for Dublin Hospitals from 1858-1868 show that in both the Rotunda and the Coombe, puerperal fever was still the main cause of maternal death, accounting for almost half of the deaths which occurred.

Rotunda Hospital, Dublin

Today, the instances of puerperal fever in the developed world have been reduced dramatically due to good hygiene practice and deaths have been reduced due to the invention of antibiotics. However, even in first world countries it is still a significant risk factor in childbirth and remains a major cause of maternal mortality today.

Ruth Talbot,
Library Intern

Particles of the Past at the NLI

Last week the National Library of Ireland opened a new exhibition entitled 'Particles of the Past', which celebrates the Library's scientific holdings. The exhibition contains an array of material from different time periods looking at different aspects of the sciences.

One exhibit is a eighteenth century volume containing home remedies for everything from sore throats to piles. Co-curate Aoife O'Connor said of this item;

"Some of the cures are just amazing. In the 1700s they were doing things like crushing up earthworms, powdering them and feeding them to people; the powdered earthworms were generally served with white wine it seems! Another remedy involved the use of human faeces to cure eye complaints. Fantastic stuff!”

To tie in with the exhibition the NLI will be hosting a number of evening talks. The first, on Wednesday 7th March will be given by Dr Catherine Cox, Centre for the History of Medicine, UCD, and will look at medical dispensaries and doctors in nineteenth century Ireland. Later in the month Dr Clara Cullen, also from UCD, will be giving a talk on 'Science for everyman (and women): the Royal College of Science for Ireland and its students, 1867-1926'.

Both talks start at 7pm and all are welcome

The Particles of the Past exhibition is in Number 2/3 Kildare Street and will run until the end of the year.

ICOH Dublin 2018

During the last month the Heritage Centre has been assisting the Faculty of Occupational Medicine in preparing their final presentation to the International Commission of Occupational Health to hold the 2018 Congress in Dublin.

The ICOH congress is a global Occupational Health event, held every three years, which attracts over 2,000 occupational health professionals. In was last held in Dublin in 1984. The Faculty's bid was submitted in December 2011, and Dublin is on the final shortlist, along with Marrakech, Morocco. The theme of the bid is 'From Ireland to the World – Uniting Occupational Health Professions in Ireland in 2018 to promote the health of the worker internationally'. You can view the full bid document here and find out more about the bid here. You can also follow the progress of the bid on Twitter - @ICOHDublin2018.

Last month the Secretary General of ICOH, Dr Sergio Iavicoli came to visit Dublin as part of the bid process. The tour ended with a dinner in Number 6, where a number of items from the Heritage Collections relating to Occupational Health were on display; including two copies of Ramazzini's seminal work on Occupational Health, De Morbis Artificum (Diseases of Tradesmen).

Bernardo Ramazzini (1633-1714) was an Italian physician and teacher. His early works were concerned with the epidemiology of malaria, but in 1703 he published his work on Occupational Health. In this work Ramazzini outlines the health hazards of chemicals, dust, metals, reparative or violent motions and odd postures encountered by workers in over 50 occupations. Ramazzini suggested that the question 'What is your occupation?' should be added to the list of questions asked of patients by their doctors.

The Latin copy of Ramazzini held by Dun's Library is missing its title page, and consequently the information on when and where it was published is also missing. Dr Iavicoli, an expert on Ramazzini, was able to identify our copy as the 2nd edition published in Padua in 1713.



Title page of the 1705 English translation of Ramazzini in Dun's Library



10,000 and counting …

The Dun's Library e-cataloguing project hit an important milestone today with the cataloguing of the 10,000^th item! This means that we are about one third of the way though the library collections. The pace of cataloguing has noticeably increased in the last two months with the appointment of a full-time intern to assist with the project, and they had the honour of cataloguing the 10,000^th item

Acute Dilation of the Stomach by William Doolin is a pamphlet reprinted from The British Journal of Surgery. It is part of the Kirkpatrick Pamphlet Collection, which contains over 3,000 items on medical, historical, religious, local history and miscellaneous subjects. Thomas Percy Claude Kirkpatrick (1869-1954) was a medic, bibliophile and medical historian; he worked at Dr Steevens' Hospital and the Rotunda, and was also Registrar of this College for over 40 years. His pamphlet collection is a hugely valuable and varied resource, and covers an eclectic range of subjects.

William Doolin (1887-1962) was a contemporary and friend of Kirkpatrick. Doolin graduated from UCD in 1910, he worked at St. Vincent's and Temple Street hospitals, and was heavily involved with the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. Like Kirkpatrick he was also interested in the history of medicine, particularly the French School of Medicine. He published Wayfarers in Medicine in 1947 which contains biographies of many eminent medics. For many years he was editor of the Irish Journal of Medical Science.

 

Book of the Month: William Buchan’s Domestic Medicine.

William Buchan (1729-1805) was a Scottish doctor who, in 1769, produced the first edition of what was to be one of the most popular and successful medical books ever published.

Buchan was critical of the medical profession for making a mystery of their art and his book, which was entitled Domestic Medicine; or a Treatise on the Prevention and Cure of Diseases, by Regimen and Simple Medicines, was aimed at the lay public and was intended to give practical advice on preserving good health and treating common ailments using easily obtained medical preparations.

Buchan's advocacy of self-help, simple treatments, plain diet, hygiene and temperance struck a chord with the public, particularly wives and mothers who would be largely responsible for the health of their household. It was said that the two books to be found in every Scottish croft were Buchan and the Bible. He was also a strong supporter of inoculation against smallpox, more than 20 years before the publication of Jenner's Introduction of Vaccination.

The book became an instant best seller and was to run to 21 editions in Britain and Ireland and remain in print for over 90 years. It was translated into all the main European languages and also enjoyed great popularity in the USA.

Dun's Library holds copies of seven different editions of this book, ranging from the 3rd (1774) to the 21st (1813), all except one printed in Dublin. The copy of the 6th edition of 1777 has the name "Anne Mahon, Castlegar" written on the title page. She was part of the Mahon family, who loved on the extensive Mahon Estate in Castlegar, Co. Galway, and would have been a typical user of Buchan in her care of her family and servants.

Buchan died in 1805 and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.

Robert Mills, RCPI Librarian

The Scarlet Ribbon by Derry O’Dowd

Last night the Heritage Centre staff put on their glad rags and headed off to the launch of The Scarlet Ribbon by Derry O'Dowd.

This historical novel is written by father and daughter team Michael and Katy O'Dowd. Set in the 1730s and 1740s it follows the career of the young Irish surgeon James Quinn, as he battles prejudice and controversy in an attempt to become a man midwife. A profession which, at that time, was only open to females. Set in Paris, London, Dublin and Galway, the novel is described as 'a story of the thorns of love and the harsh reality of life in the eighteenth century, where nothing is simple and complications of all kinds surround James Quinn, man midwife.'

The question and answer session at the book launch provided an interesting insight into the co-authoring of the book. Michael O'Dowd, an obstetrician and Fellow of the College, had the idea and specialist knowledge to write the book, while Katy provided the 'author's voice'. Michael O'Dowd has previously written two academic histories of obstetrics and gynaecology, and made use of the Heritage Centre collections in his research. For each scene, the two would sit down and discuss exactly what was going to happen and how, before Katy would write the scene up. They did confess there had been a major disagreement over one of the scenes, which had been resolved by both agreeing to leave out the parts they wanted. You can find out more about the authors here - http://writing.ie/meet-the-authors/historical-fiction/496-derry-odowds-the-scarlet-ribbon.html

The Scarlet Ribbon is the first fiction work published by History Press Ireland and is, as they say, available now in all good bookshops!