The Racing Doctor

Doctors were few and far between in the area south of Liverpool known as the Cowpastures in the 19th Century. This area included Campbelltown. There was no guarantee of their skills or qualifications so for the sick and injured, life was risky.

A highly interesting and useful addition to the library's collection is The Racing Doctor: Tales of Medical Care in the Cowpastures by Elizabeth Villy. Published in 2014, it takes a look at the experiences of various doctors practising in the Cowpastures in the 19th Century. It starts with a chapter on the area's first and well known doctor William Redfern.

The Racing Doctor was the name given to Dr William Kenny and a chapter is devoted to this doctor who provided much medical help to the the folk of Campbelltown. The author writes that he had a dubious background in medicine but was renowned for his prowess on the race track! He was charged with supervising floggings at Campbelltown Gaol of which he seemed unperturbed.

Another doctor that is featured is Dr William Bell who I have written about in a previous blog article. There is a fascinating look at the skills used by Granny Long, a midwife of the Burragorang Valley and a chapter that specifically deals with home remedies for the early settler.

Make sure you check this book out next time you visit our library. It's a real gem.

Written by Andrew Allen

Elizabeth Walsh

I recently came across the following newspaper article from the Sydney Morning Herald dated December 9, 1859: An inquest was held at noon on Tuesday, at the house of Mr Fieldhouse, sign of the Jolly Miller, by Dr Bell, the coroner, on the body of an infant named Elizabeth Walsh, aged one year and eight months. It appeared that on Saturday, the 20th November, the child, who was able to walk about the house, went to the table, and pulled a plate with hot flour and milk, food prepared for her, off it, when the contents went over her face and chest, causing an extensive scald. The burns were deep and they turned gangrenous. Poor Elizabeth died 15 days later on December 5. Dr Bell's verdict was that she "Died from the effects of accidental scalding." Elizabeth would probably have survived today but in the middle of the nineteenth century there was little that Dr Bell could have done to save her life.

Elizabeth was the first of 7 children to John and Mary Walsh. They were married in 1856 at St David's Presbyterian Church in Campbelltown. They later moved to Berrima in the early 1860s.

My next blog post will feature The Jolly Miller Hotel referred to in the inquest above.

Written by Andrew Allen

Source:

The Sydney Morning Herald, Friday 9 December, 1859 page 3

Dr William Bell

The bulk of the information for this post comes from the extensive research performed by Lois Sabine from the Blue Mountains Historical Society. Lois spent countless hours researching material for her article on Dr Bell in the Blue Mountains History Journal cited at the end of this post.

Few men have left such an indelible mark on Campbelltown as Dr William Bell. Although he only lived in Campbelltown for six years, his medical contributions helped him earn the reputation as one of the finest doctors the town has seen.

William Bell was born in Newry, Ireland in 1815. He sailed to Sydney in 1839 as Surgeon Superintendent and after arriving established a practice where he offered free consultations for the poor. He then moved to Parramatta and Windsor where he performed more medical work. However Dr Bell soon became insolvent as a result largely of the economic conditions of the 1840s. In fact money problems plagued him for the rest of his life.

Dr Bell wrote a number of medical publications during his life. His first work written in 1849 was "The Settlers Guide" or "Modern Domestic Medicine and Surgery". This book arose from Bell's observation of the need to help the many settlers who lived out in the bush, and who were far away from medical assistance. He also hoped that the book would solve his financial problems.

Bell moved to Carcoar near Bathurst in 1850 and then Orange the following year. In 1854 he had a practice at nearby Sofala on the goldfields. A coroner's report from his time there reported that he had performed a post mortem on a notorious drunkard, a woman who had been missing overnight and was found next day standing upright in the middle of a water hole but when rescued she immediately expired.

In 1855 the miners were moving on from the goldfields and Dr Bell thought Campbelltown would be a good place to move to. He rented a well furnished house that had a surgery, two parlours and three bedrooms.

In 1857 he became a coroner for the area. Using whatever transport was available to him, he was required to reach a body before decomposition set in. The court would then sit at the inn nearest to the incident.

Dr Bell was soon in financial trouble again and became insolvent for the third time in his life. He had run up accounts after buying a piano forte for his parlour, books for his daughters, furnishings and expensive clothes. Perhaps to overcome these financial problems, he wrote and published an essay titled "The Wear and Tear on Human Life" and another one titled "On the Origins, Progress and Treatment of Smallpox". It was however more likely that Campbelltown's healthy population had reduced his income. His business had fallen by 400 pounds from 1858 to 1859. He was charging 1 pound and 1 shilling for a visit and about 10 shillings for medicine.

Despite his financial worries, Dr Bell was involved with a number of committees in the town. Some of his activities included: the formation of a Benevolent Socity, chairman to raise funds for the celebrations for the opening of the railway in 1858, raising funds for the Donegal Relief Fund for the starving peasantry and an inaugural member of the Campbelltown School of Arts Committee.

It was his experiences as a doctor that most fascinated me. A search of Trove revealed some interesting, challenging and distressing calls for Dr Bell during his years in Campbelltown. Some of these included amputating a boy's thumb after a shooting accident, attending to a child after a tree had fallen on him, a girl who had died after falling out of a cart, a 17 year old girl dying after her clothes caught on fire and the scalding of a 20 month old girl who pulled a plate of boiling milk and flour over her. There were many inquests that he was needed for and many of these were as a result of intemperance.

Dr Bell moved to Picton in 1862. He later moved to Ashfield and practised in the city. His health began to decline and he became insolvent for a fourth and fifth time. He was advised to take a holiday to a warm climate but he never made this. Instead he moved back to Picton where he died in 1871. The end had come for a wonderfully talented medical man whose brilliance had touched the lives of many.

Written by Andrew Allen

Sources:

LISTON, Carol 1988
Campbelltown: The Bicentennial History
North Sydney: Allen and Unwin

Dr William Bell (1815-1871): Experiences of a 19th Century Doctor on either side of the Blue Mountains
In Blue Mountains History Journal
1; 2010