History of Public Health - Curious Edinburgh

The original site of the Usher Institute

Nov 252020

Optional stop: 102 Warrender Park Road, EH9 1ET

Inscription on the building: 'University of Edinburgh. The John Usher Institute of Public Health presented to the University by Mr John Usher of Norton & Wells, baronet. May, MDCCCCII'.

102 Warrender Park Road was home to the Usher Institute from its opening in 1902 until its move to Teviot Place in 1986. The opening of the Usher Institute closely followed the establishment, at the University of Edinburgh, of the first chair of public health in Britain four years earlier. The new university chair needed an institute and, as soon as Sir John Usher pledged his generous donation, building began. Charles Hunter Steward (1854-1924), the first Professor of Public Health, visited laboratories throughout Europe to ensure that the Usher Institute was built and equipped according to the most up-to-date ideas of laboratory design of the time. The building not only functioned as teaching and practical training space, but as a diagnostic laboratory for Edinburgh. The institute conducted chemical and bacteriological research, such as monitoring water quality and epidemics within the city, thereby honoring Usher’s intention that an important role of the Institute would be the application of scientific research to improve population health in the city.

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Description of 102 Warrender Park Road in Listed Buildings, Historic Environment Scotland

14 Elsie Inglis Quadrangle, Old Medical School

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Nov 252020

The quadrangle of the University of Edinburgh’s Old Medical School is now called the Elsie Inglis Quadrangle, named after the pioneering female medical doctor. Several plaques here honour medical professionals who all made significant contributions to the practice of medicine. Along with Elsie Inglis (1864-1917), there are plaques for James Lind (1736-1812), who pioneered the use of citrus fruits to cure scurvy, Joseph Lister (1827-1912), who helped to dramatically reduce post-operative mortality rates by establishing new rules of surgery hygiene, and Sir James Young Simpson (1811-1870), who was the first physician to use chloroform as an anesthetic. Take some time to walk around the quadrangle and see if you can find them all.

Plaques for Sir James Young Simpson and Lord Joseph Lister

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The Usher Institute, Old Medical School

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Nov 252020

Teviot Place, EH8 9AG

The Usher Institute, originally called the John Usher Institute of Public Health, opened in 1902 at a site in Warrender Park Road (see last stop) and was funded by distiller Sir John Usher of Norton. Usher’s generosity to promote and fund public health research was inspired by the French biologist Louis Pasteur. Together with local brewers, Usher took interest in Pasteur’s fermentation experiments and the new science of microbiology. Pasteur, appalled by the state of population health in Edinburgh, convinced the brewers about the new possibilities of disease prevention presented in his research. The idea that illness was caused by germs led to a surge of optimism about medicine’s power to defeat disease. In 1986, when the Usher Institute moved here to the (Old) Medical School Building, the Royal Infirmary still operated just across the road at Quartermile. By this time, the Institute had broadened its work to focus on epidemiology (the study of health and disease in populations broadly understood) and the investigation of other factors that influence population health, such as the efficacy of health services. Plans are underway to relocate the Institute to the BioQuarter (Little France) campus, closer to the current buildings of the Medical School, where a second site has already opened.

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Victoria Dispensary

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Nov 252020

13 Bank Street, EH1 2LN

Tuberculosis, or consumption, has long been a major public health issue because it is both a deadly and highly infectious disease. The Industrial Revolution, with cramped housing, primitive sanitation, and widespread malnutrition, created the perfect environment to allow tuberculosis to rise to epidemic levels by the 18^th century. Because it affected young people at a high rate and because of the pale skin caused by the disease it was also sometimes called “the robber of youth” and “the white plague.” The Victoria Dispensary for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, founded by Sir Robert William Philip (1857-1939) in 1887, was the first of its kind in the world. Together with the Royal Victoria Hospital at Comely Bank founded in 1894, and Polton Farm Colony, Midlothian, founded in 1910, the dispensary formed the heart of the so called ‘Edinburgh Scheme’ for combating tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is still a major public health problem worldwide. The World Health Organisation is committed to eradicating the disease by 2050 with the help of improved drug treatment and prevention strategies.

Inscription still visible on the building: The destitute sick

Sir Robert William Philip (Wellcome Collection)

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North Loch and the Scott Monument

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Nov 252020

Mound Place, EH1 2LX

Mound Place looking over the North Loch — Mound

The Nor’ Loch was drained between 1813 and 1820 to become Princes Street gardens. Draining of the Loch was the result of pressures from Edinburgh’s growing upper class to rid the City of the stench emanating from it. The Loch had become a dumping ground for the population of Edinburgh, including waste from the city’s slaughterhouses. As such, it had become a serious public health issue, even though there was no evidence to suggest that the Loch ever supplied the people of Edinburgh with drinking water. The Mound – the hill you are currently standing on – is manmade, formed between 1781 and 1880 from material collected while digging the foundations for the buildings in New Town. It provides extensive views of Princes Street and the city of Edinburgh, including a view of the famous Scott Monument. Construction of the Scott Monument began in 1840 in honour of the Scottish Poet Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832). It was designed by carpenter and self-taught architect George Meikle Kemp (1795-1844). Beautiful and impressive as it is, the story of how it was built is a dark one. There is anecdotal evidence to show that many of the stonemasons who worked to create it contracted silicosis/tuberculosis from a combination of the intensive stone work required and the dusty properties of the sandstone used to construct it.

Historical reconstruction of Edinburgh Castle and the Nor` Loch by Alexander Nasmyth, 1824.
(National Galleries Scotland). — Edinburgh Castle and the Nor’ Loch by Alexander Nasmyth, 1824. The picture was painted after the loch had been drained and is a reconstruction of the historic landscape (National Galleries Scotland).

Building the Scott Monument. Artist: unknown. Date: about 1841-44. (Scottish National Portrait Gallery). — Building the Scott Monument.
Artist: unknown. Date: about 1841-44.
(Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

The Sir Walter Scott Monument being built, view of the Castle. Artist: unknown. Date: about 1841. (Scottish National Portrait Gallery). — Building the Scott Monument.
Artist: unknown. Date: about 1841.
(Scottish National Portrait Gallery).

Sir Walter Scott Monument under construction. Photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot. Date: about 1841-44. Source: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. — Sir Walter Scott Monument under construction. Photograph by William Henry Fox Talbot. Date: about 1841-44. (Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art).

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Plaque for Sophia Jex-Blake

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Nov 252020

St Giles’ Cathedral, High St, EH1 1RE

Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912) became Scotland’s first female doctor when she established a private practice in Edinburgh in September 1878 at 73 Grove Street. In 1885, she opened the Edinburgh Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children, just a few doors down from her private practice. It was a so-called cottage hospital, a small hospital (6 beds) intended to cater for the immediate needs of the local poor population without requiring them to travel long distances.

Sophia Jex-Blake. Creator: unknown. © The University of Edinburgh — Sophia Jex-Blake. Creator: unknown.
© The University of Edinburgh

Sophia Jex-Blake. Photograph by Swaine. (Wellcome Collection). — Sophia Jex-Blake. Photograph by Swaine.
(Wellcome Collection).

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Elsie Inglis Hospice

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Nov 252020

219 High Street, EH1 1PE

The Elsie Inglis Hospice was a maternity hospital originally named simply, “The Hospice.” It was created in 1904 by Dr Elsie Inglis (1864-1917) with the help of fellow medical student Dr Jessie McLaren MacGregor (1863-1906). The two women were among the first female students to attend the newly founded Edinburgh School of Medicine for Women and were both taught by its founder Dr Sophia Jex-Blake (1840-1912). Child mortality was a major public health concern and maternity wards were scarce. The hospice was run by an all-female staff, served the poorest women in Edinburgh’s Old Town, and was the forerunner of the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity hospital in Morningside.

Women of Achievement plaque for Elsie Inglis

The Hospice in the High Street (from Elsie Inglis by Eva Shaw McLaren, 1920) Image from LHSA

Portrait of Dr Elsie Inglis (Wellcome Collection) — Portrait of Dr Elsie Inglis
(Wellcome Collection)

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‘Heave Awa Hoose’

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Nov 252020

Paisley Close, 97 High Street, EH1 1SG

Population growth, particularly in the area within the medieval burgh wall, required the city to expand vertically. Multiple-story buildings were common in the 16^th century and by the 18^th century, buildings on High Street were often six to ten stories tall and could reach up to 14 stories towards the back where the land sloped down. On 24th November 1861, a 7-story building at Paisley Close collapsed, killing 35. Local newspapers of the day reported the successful rescue of a little boy, Joseph McIvor, who was heard crying ‘Heave awa’ lads, I’m no’ deid yet!’ from under the debris. The public scandal that followed highlighted the need for structural safety of tenement buildings in Old Town and helped gain support for the 1867 Improvement Act. You can still find the boy at the entrance of the close.

Horizontal expansion of buildings at West Bow on the Royal Mile by Archibald Burns, late 19th century (Scottish National Portrait Gallery) — Horizontal expansion of buildings at West Bow on the Royal Mile, photograph by Archibald Burns, late 19^th century
(Scottish National Portrait Gallery)

Contemporary illustration of the building collapse at Paisley Close (source: The Scotsman)

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Lost Edinburgh: Tenement Collapse 1861

45 Blackfriars Street

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Nov 242020

45 Blackfriars St, EH1 1NB

Struck by the mid-19th-century potato famine, impoverished rural workers from Ireland and the Scottish Highlands moved to Edinburgh and into the dilapidated buildings left behind by the local nobility and middle class who, by then, had relocated to New Town. Larger homes previously occupied by the wealthy were subdivided into small lodgings, often shared by multiple families. Severe overcrowding and poor sanitation created a fertile ground for the spread of disease. In his 1850 survey on the living conditions in Blackfriars Wynd, Dr George Bell reported 10 Irish immigrants, including a child dying of consumption, sharing a single room. The situation raised much discussion among Victorian sanitary workers, who lamented the misery of the poor just as keenly as their moral failings. In 1867, the City Improvement Act made provisions to demolish all buildings on the east side, widen the roadway, and erect new tenements in Blackfriars Wynd (subsequently renamed Street). 45-51 Blackfriars Street, at the junction of New Skinner`s Close, displays a plaque to commemorate the Blackfriars Building Association of 84 working men, a co-operative effort to finance and erect two buildings on clearance sites under the Improvement Act.

Faint inscription on the façade of 45-51 Blackfriars Street: 'These were the first dwelling houses erected to provide accommodation for the industrial classes on the site of those demolished by the city authorities under the Improvement Act 1867' — : ‘This and the adjoining tenement were built by the Blackfriars Building Association, composed of 84 working men, in 1871. These were the first dwelling houses erected to provide accommodation for the industrial classes on the site of those demolished by the city authorities under the Improvement Act 1867’.

Cardinal Beaton's House before the demolitions, by Archibald Burns, 1868 — Cardinal Beaton’s House at the junction of Cowgate and Blackfriars’ Wynd before the demolitions, photograph by Archibald Burns, 1868
(National Portrait Gallery)

Dereliction in Bulls Close, Cowgate, photograph by Archibald Burns, 1858 (National Portrait Gallery)

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Description of 45-51 Blackfriars Street in Listed Buildings, Historic Environment Scotland

The Netherbrow Wellhead

History of Public Health No Responses »

Nov 242020

near John Knox House, High Street, EH1 1SR

In 1681, water was brought in by a ‘leaden pipe’ from the burns south of the town to a reservoir on Castle Hill. The reservoir supplied six wells in the High Street, including the one at Netherbrow Port. The rich, who lived on the upper floors of tall tenements, employed ‘water caddies’ to carry water upstairs. However, by the late-18th century, the water coming to the city was not enough to provide for the rapidly growing population and supply to the wells was restricted to only three hours a day. In the early 19th century, water companies were established and new pipes introduced. Nonetheless, water supply remained inadequate both in quantity and quality. During droughts, impure surface water was pumped into the wells. The 1867 Improvement Act introduced by William Chambers, and the Improvement Scheme that followed, had considerable success in tackling these issues.

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