It seems hard to remember what life was like before the NHS. As we mark its 75th anniversary today, memories of medical treatments before its existence have emerged in a treasure trove of spoken accounts of healthcare through the decades
A DIFFERENT TIME: A nurse tends to young patients in a river ambulance for sufferers from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis in 1922
Memories of medical treatments before the existence of the NHS have emerged in a treasure trove of spoken accounts of healthcare through the decades. The records were unearthed to mark the 75th anniversary of the NHS. Among those interviewed over the years include a 1930s midwife, a chemist in the 1910s and 1920s, nurses, doctors, and even accounts of home remedies. A team at the East Midlands Oral History Archive, at the University of Leicester, have chosen a number of clips of people talking about the NHS and healthcare in the region, with most of the recordings made in the 1980s.
There are also recordings of post-war healthcare from the 1940s and the 1950s. You can listen to a compilation of recordings about public health during the early years of the 20th century, and the need for a National Health Service.The compilation of clips includes recollections of illnesses such as tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, pneumonia and the Spanish flu outbreak in 1919.
"Poorer people often struggled to pay for health care, so a long list of home remedies developed, for example, brimstone and treacle, and there was little expectation of things we take for granted, like dental care. “One thing that sticks in my mind is the chemist recalling people queuing for laudanum, a cure-all mixture of opium and alcohol that was, unsurprisingly, highly addictive.”
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