Volume 4

Report of the City of Glasgow Fever Hospital.

  • Ruchill Fever Hospital (Glasgow, Scotland)
Date:
[1866?]-[between 1890 and 1899?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the City of Glasgow Fever Hospital. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    10/70 (page 8)
    suggestive of proximity to a large city. The River Clyde runs, still apparently pure, in front, and between it and the Cathkin hills, which close in the horizon at a distance of three or four miles southwards, there is a stretch of wooded country Unfortunately, Relapsing Fever was now pressing bo hard upon us that it was impossible to build even on such a site a permanent Fever Hospital. Since the middle of October an increasing proportion of the cases had been treated at home for want of hospital accommodation. At the meeting of the Committee of Health on 14th November, 1870, it was reported that 174 cases were being so treated, and of these 83 at the expense of the Board. It was immediately resolved to erect two temporary pavilions for about 100 patients, and otherwise to prepare Belvidere, in the quickest possible way, for the treatment of Relapsing Fever. So far as rapidity of erection is concerned, the result was successful. The pavilions were designed to facilitate this in every way con- sistent with moderate comfort, being of wood, single-lined, covered in all parts with felt, and divided into wards for 2-i patients each, with about 1000 cubic feet of space per bed. As wrought-iron bedsteads could not be made quick enough, wooden ones were prepared after the pattern of those used in Ireland during the Typhus epidemic which accompanied the potato famine. The windows were double-glazed to retain the heat, and open fires, in cast-iron fire-places, cased round, so as to admit fresh air from below the floor, after passing over the heated surfaces, were expected to furnish sufficient heat. The contractor entered the stubble-field, on which the hospital stands, on 22nd November, 1S70, and on 19th December a pavilion was finished so far that it was possible to relieve the hospital in Parliamentary Road of 24 con- valescents, and in a few days of 24 more. When we remember the distance from town, the difficulty of working out of doors in a winter of such severity, the snow being several inches deep, so that the wood had to be thawed with salt sometimes, we must admit this expedition to be very creditable to the contractor, Mr. Thomas Lamb. My chief