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
This refusal on the part of the majority of the Board, led on by this
Chairman, to allow me to send suitable cases of sickness to the Asylum
Hospital, was in the highest degree absurd, seeing that the ratepayers
of the Union had to pay their proportion of all expenses at the Asylum
Hospital, and for the beds to which the Union were entitled; and
although this Workhouse infirmary was a perfect paradise in comparison
with the den at the Strand, still the House had not been arranged on the
principle that all the sick should be retained in it. My nursing staff
was insufficient to enable me effectually to deal with the great number
of sick persons there at the time of my entrance on my duties. One
illustration will suffice. There was a man in an infirm ward who had
been under Mr. French some five or six years. He did not belong to
Westminster, he was kept there because he alleged he was so ill that he
could not bear the fatigue of journeying some sixty miles in the
country. He was a healthy-looking man about forty years of age. He
always lay in bed with his knees drawn up, and constantly asserted that
he could not stand nor walk, nor put his legs down. He complained
piteously of his sufferings. I exhausted every conceivable treatment,
but all without the least apparent benefit, as he never owned to being
any better for my attention to him. This went on for two years, until I
began to get suspicious of him. One day an inmate of the ward, who had
recovered and left the House, called on me at my private residence. On
seeing me he said, "I have called to thank you for your kindness to me,
and also to tell you that you have been deceived by that man Webster,
who you have done so much for. He is an impostor. He can walk as well as
I can, and, what is more, does walk about." "Nonsense," I replied; "he
says he cannot get out of bed, and the nurses confirm it." "Well," he
continued, "he takes very good care never to allow them to see him get
out of bed, he takes his constitutional walk about the wards between 2
and 4 a.m., when the lights are down, and most of the inmates asleep."
"But, surely," I said, "the night nurse must have seen him, and if so
she would report it to me!" "Oh," he replied, "she hardly ever comes
into the ward during the night, she is generally in her own room fast
asleep--she gets herself called when she is wanted." I made some further
inquiries, and finding that there was evidence of deception, I sent him
to the Asylum Hospital with a letter to the superintendent medical
officer, giving his history, and telling him of my suspicions, and
asking that he might be carefully watched by reliable persons. He came
back in a fortnight, having been found out. He was immediately
transferred to his settlement, where doubtless he recommenced the game
of deception, having found it answer so well.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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