History of the Seaham Infirmary: A local health service for the 19th century

The 18th and 19th centuries were a torrid time for the sick, elderly, and maimed in the United Kingdom. Workers had been lured into towns from the surrounding countryside by the prospect of work and the hope of prosperity in the new manufacturing industries. Their accommodation was provided by speculative builders and landlords who had no regard for their comfort and welfare and with no building or sanitary controls to regulate their activities. Sub-standard housing meant that many workers lived in over-crowded, squalid, poorly ventilated, and damp conditions. It was little wonder that mortality rates were high particularly in new born babies who were particularly susceptible to infectious disease and the effects of insanitary and damp living conditions.

Medicines, where available, were crude and overwhelmingly botanical, with preparations of mercury, arsenic, iron and phosphorous commonly dispensed. Doctors frequently prescribed a change of air along with laxatives, blood-letting, and the use of leeches. 

Little attention was given to hygiene in hospitals. Lice and lethal infections flourished and the air was often filled with the smell of vomit and rotting flesh. Mortality rates for patients treated in hospital were three or four times higher than they were for patients treated at home. Care for the sick, injured, mentally ill and aged was provided from a variety of sources none of which was centrally planned or co-ordinated. The Poor Law provided some level of hospital or infirmary treatment for the destitute long-term sick and aged but these were attached to workhouses and were the final refuge often as a prelude to dying.

The standard of medical treatment and hygiene in workhouse infirmaries were far worse than in any other type of medical facility. Doctors visited these facilities once or twice a week and the daily care was the responsibility of the nurse. Asylums for the mentally ill were provided as a charge on the Poor Rate Fund but only for the dangerously insane; harmless cases were left in the workhouse infirmary. Isolation hospitals were provided for the treatment of infectious diseases such as smallpox and cholera which were rampant during this period. The 1834 Poor Law required that all paupers who wanted public relief, including the chronically sick and injured, entered the workhouse. 

This was the reality of healthcare in the 18th and 19th century. The population of Seaham Harbour was rapidly expanding in the 1830's and 1840's with many new industrial and commercial ventures starting up and a rapidly expanding township. The time was right for some form of medical, surgical, and nursing provision at Seaham Harbour. See more