Joseph Rogers, M.D.: Reminiscences of a Workhouse Medical OfficerRogers, Joseph
History
Joseph Rogers, M.D.: Reminiscences of a Workhouse Medical Officer
Rogers, Joseph
Charities, Medical -- Great Britain; Poor laws -- Great Britain
Some time after I received a notice to attend, when I found Mr. Richard
Griffin and Dr. Fowler in the room. Griffin had come there with evidence
that would have taken a month to take down. Fowler was not so diffuse, a
couple of days would have got through what he had to say. Appalled by
the vast body of evidence offered by these two, the Committee ordered
the room to be cleared; on our re-admission we learned that the
Committee had decided that Mr. Griffin and Dr. Fowler should put in
their evidence, which should be taken as if delivered. I was then called
on. I had neither note nor paper, as I relied on Mr. Farnall's promise.
The questions were mainly put by Mr. Villiers. I amplified briefly the
views I had expressed to Mr. Farnall. This led to my being asked for
some additional explanations, which I supplied. Ultimately I was
dismissed, but not before I had convinced myself that my day's work had
not been thrown away. Poor Richard Griffin had worked for many years
with wonderful industry to call attention to the grievances of Poor Law
medical officers, and thought he should succeed. But he was destined to
fail, for although the Committee had allowed him to put in his evidence,
yet the facts he had collected with so much pains were successfully
traversed by Mr. R. B. Caine, Poor Law Inspector, who by certain
statistics made out to the Committee's satisfaction that medical men had
no great cause for complaint. Poor Fowler's evidence was similarly
snuffed out; as regards mine, the Committee reported in its favour, but
not as to the whole of it. They probably dreaded the cost to the various
Union Boards of the provision of all medicines, but they suggested a
compromise, to wit, that Boards of Guardians should be required to
supply expensive medicines, such as cod liver oil, quinine, opium, &c.
Small as the concession was, Mr. H. Fleming delayed the issue of the
Committee's recommendation for fifteen months after it had been made,
and then sent out a letter couched in such official language that a
great many Boards contented themselves with ordering the letter to lie
on the table. Some years after, I asked Dr. Lush, M.P. for Salisbury, to
move for a copy of the Board's letter and a return of what had been
done. I found from that return that about half of those bodies had not
noticed the letter at all. Subsequently, twenty years after the issue of
the letter, my brother, Thorold Rogers, moved for a similar return, only
to show that there were still several Boards where nothing whatever was
supplied.
When the letter was read at the Strand Board, a suggestion was made
that I should be offered an increase of my stipend and be required to
purchase the medicines myself. This I declined. Ultimately it was
arranged that I should be allowed to order drugs of a wholesale chemist,
but only to the extent of £27 a year: anything beyond that I was
expected to pay for myself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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