SOUTHAMPTON MEDICAL SOCIETY
President: Dr Alan Roberts FRCP
A meeting of the Southampton Medical Society was held on Zoom on the 2nd of February 2022. The President was in the chair from Australia. The minutes of the previous meeting were approved.
The President then introduced our speaker Mr Andy Skinner MA ,of Southampton City Council Cultural Services, who spoke to the title ‘A History of Southampton in Health: Plagues, Pestilence and Pandemics’. He said that Southampton’s history went back to the Bronze age and he showed us a Bronze age funeral urn which was discovered at an archeological site in Moorgreen where there was a small Bronze Age settlement. Medicines were limited then to herbal remedies. Burned grains were also discovered at the site indicating that beer was made.
In 43CE the Romans built a fortified settlement called Clausentium on the east bank of the Itchen river. Stumps of stilts on the waters edge can be seen which indicate there was a port here. Roman coins and lead ingots were discovered. From here Slaves, and lead mined in the west country, were exported. The Antonine Plague spread here possibly due to it being a port. Galen mentions the plague in his thesis on medicine in which sensible general advice along with mythical treatments linked to the 4 elements of Earth, Air, Fire and Water. It was believed when these become out of balance ill health results.
After the Romans left in 410CE Britain was invaded by European tribes who interbred with the native population creating the Anglo Saxons.
There is a quote from Cicero on the side of the Civic Centre reading Salus populi suprema est lex. [The health of the people should be the supreme law.] The Anglo-Saxon era is referred to as the Dark Ages due to our limited knowledge of the period. The Islamic and Eastern world were more advanced in learning and medicine than England.
In 1066 Southampton emerges as a maritime centre - a major trading town. Southampton has a rich archive collection from this time. The Southampton Oak Book of c1300 contains trading information, maritime law, type of bread to bake, town regulations re health [eg butchers were only allowed to sell “sweet” meat] and no rubbish in the streets. Southampton had its own piped clean water supply - one of the best in the country.
The water was fed by gravity and piped to Conduit House [near the theatre] and then piped to districts. The spring was near Springhill School and permission was given to the Franciscans to channel the water. Their mission was to look after the poor, serve the community and minister to the sick. There were a number of industries dependent on clean water such as brewers and butchers.
In 1348 the plague reached Southampton and a quarter of the population died [in Bristol 50 per cent died]. The town gate was barred, a red X was painted on the front door if any occupant was unwell and those from such a house had to carry a white stick when outside. Six men and women were employed as bearers of the sick to transport them to plague booths where they were locked in. The plague had a devastating effect on the city. The disease kept returning for a few hundred years.
In the 17thC John Speed, the mapmaker, had a son who became a Southampton doctor and his grandson and great grandson also became local doctors. The last one [also called John] was a meticulous recorder of events and wrote a history of Southampton.
In 1620 the Mayflower sailed from Southampton [not Plymouth]. Illnesses were brought in by Europeans sailing to the USA via Southampton such as smallpox, measles, flu and cholera and was called the Great Dying. In 1665 the plague returned and again had
a devastating effect
In the mid eighteenth century a chalybeate spring was discovered and Southampton became a spa town. Sea bathing became popular and was seen as a cure for many illnesses - even rabies.
By 1850 the docks were expanding. There were horrific slums around Bugle Street. In Simnel Street 250 people died of cholera in 3 months and 474 in Southampton as a whole. Dr Francis Cooper was appointed the first Officer of Public Health as the result of the public outcry at the death of a young pregnant woman, Elizabeth Biggs, from starvation and lack of care. He campaigned for improvements in housing, sanitary conditions, policing, education and health care especially for the poor. He died prematurely from cholera. The sewage system was woefully inadequate for an expanding town and Sir James Lemon, the Borough Surveyor, installed a new sewage system. He also replaced the springs supplying water in use since mediaeval times. In 1838 The Royal South Hants was built and the General Hospital in 1900.
In the WW1 Southampton was a major receiving port for the injured. They were sent on by ambulance trains to various receiving centres. A Private Albert Dartnell RAMC kept a diary of the sick and wounded arriving in Southampton. He noted that there were more sick than wounded.
In the last two years Covid has had an impact on public health greater than ever before. Four hundred and seventy people have died. Professor Elkington and Professor Hywel Morgan at Southampton University played a key role in the development of the PeRSo-DW hood.
The President thanked Andy Skinner for such a fascinating talk.