Joseph Rogers, M.D.: Reminiscences of a Workhouse Medical Officer — John Shaqi
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
It must not be forgotten that a medical reformer is apt at first to be
unpopular with his brethren, or at least to be discouraged by them. The
more fortunate members of the profession are apt to feel a serene
indifference to the purposes which he avows. I do not think that the
reform of those evils with which my brother concerned himself has had
much assistance from the more wealthy and influential among the
physicians. As Arnold said, contemptuously and justly, of Isaac Walton,
that "he fished through the civil wars," so these good people held, as a
rule, severely aloof from the struggle. To the poorer members of the
profession, who had to make every effort for a livelihood, and were
constrained to give their services for nominal sums in order to get a
status in their calling, it seemed more practical to get them better pay
and not to give offence. In the end this was part of the result of my
brother's labours. He was able to assert, towards the close of his
active career, that he had added £18,000 a year to the incomes of the
Poor Law medical officers in the Metropolis, and to allege that the
change, with others, had saved ten times that amount in the Metropolitan
rates. I am convinced--having once been a Guardian of the Poor in the
city where I live--that the adoption of the policy which he recommended
has effected a still greater saving.
The first reform which my brother undertook, persevered in, and speedily
saw achieved, was the prohibition of intramural interment. He had good
reason to make efforts in this direction, for he had abundant evidence
of what came from the old practice in the experience of his profession.
Most of the Metropolitan clergy were very hostile to this reform, and
for obvious reasons. But it came gradually, finally, and thoroughly. The
present generation in London has a very inadequate conception of the
abominations, in the midst of which their fathers and mothers lived, and
not a few of them were born. The abandonment of intramural interment,
and the drainage of London, imperfect as the latter is, have turned one
of the unhealthiest cities in the civilized world into one of the
healthiest. One of the first churchyards closed was that of St. Anne's,
Soho, the parish in which my brother lived for many years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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