A cure for all ills: medicine in Bendigo

P. Rayer author
Published by JB
Bailiere, London
Theoretical and practical
treatise on the disease on
the skin
1935
bound book
Collection Bendigo
Health
Dr John McIntyre Eadie
late 19th century
gelatin silver print
Courtesy Darren
Wright
City of Bendigo Reports
of Infectious Diseases
Register vol. 1
1919–1941
bound book
Collection Bendigo
Regional Archives
Centre
VA2389 City of
Bendigo/No VPRS
number
Bartlett Brothers
Bendigo 1880 - 1900
Infectious diseases
nurses, Bendigo Hospital
late 19th century
gelatin silver print
Collection Bendigo
Health
while retaining the original tooth
with the subsequent hole filled with
the newly developed substance
amalgam; a material still prevalent in
contemporary dentistry. 24
Infectious diseases
One of the most significant
developments in medical science has
been the introduction of antiseptics,
and a greater understanding of
germs and disease. Since the 1950s,
Australia has been almost entirely free
from infectious diseases in epidemic
form. This is due mainly to effective
health education programmes, the
invention of vaccines and subsequent
free mass immunisation programs
provided by municipal governments.
In the often-squalid living conditions
of the early settlement of Bendigo,
infection was widespread. With little
understanding of how diseases started
and spread, there were many deaths
from diseases that today no longer
exist or are easily treatable.
In the late nineteenth century,
public health became a civic
concern. A local Board of Health was
established and from 1872 Bendigo
City Council, then Sandhurst,
employed a Health Officer to
monitor the health of the city. The
first was Dr J Cruckshank who
was succeeded in the 1880s by Dr
John McIntyre Eadie, who retained
the appointment well into the
following century. Health officers
wrote quarterly and annual reports,
providing a statistical breakdown of
the health of the city. 25
In Dr Eadie’s Annual Health
Report for 1890, he notes that there
were 1021 births and 600 deaths. He
presents the causes of death in detail
including six from Scarlatina, nine
from Diphtheria, 12 from Typhoid
Fever, 30 from Diarrhoea and 98
from Phthisis. Often referred to as
‘miner’s complaint’, Phthisis was
a disease of the respiratory system
much like Tuberculosis and resulted
in the wasting away or atrophy of
the body; a disease Dr Eadie notes
was the unfortunate side-effect of the
‘unhealthy occupation of mining’. 26
By the turn of the century, deaths
from Phthisis amongst adult miners
in Bendigo were six times more
frequent than among all Victorian
adult males. 27
Despite vastly improved living
conditions in the early years of
the twentieth century, there was
a dramatic increase in infection
throughout the Bendigo region.
16 17