In 2013, the Cork Street Fever Hospital archive was donated to the
Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI). Following a recent funding award, the
archivists at the RCPI began the process of cataloguing and preserving
these extensive and important medical records. The project is now complete and the final collection list is available to browse through the online RCPI catalogue. In this month's post, Fergus Brady, Archivist, RCPI, reports on the archive and outlines the history of this
fascinating Irish medical institution.
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Nurses and patients on the 'lower landing', Cork Street Fever Hospital, 1903
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/1/2/1/6) |
RCPI win Wellcome Trust funding to catalogue Cork Fever Hospital Archive
A
project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, to fully catalogue the archive of Cork Street Fever Hospital has been completed by the staff of the Royal College Physicians of Ireland Heritage Centre. As part of
the project, appropriate measures were also taken to ensure the long-term
preservation of the archive so that the hospital’s records will be accessible
to researchers both in the present and into the future.
The origins of the House of Recovery and Fever Hospital, Cork Street, Dublin
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Minutes, Governors of Cork Street Fever Hospital, 1801
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/1/1/1) |
The
House of Recovery and Fever Hospital on Cork Street, Dublin, grew out of a
series of meetings held between a group of wealthy and philanthropic men drawn
from Anglican and Quaker congregations during October 1801. In the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Dublin, as elsewhere in Europe, insanitary
conditions ensured that infectious diseases were prevalent among the general
population. Those present at the October meetings had a clear idea of the
nature and scale of such health issues, stating that ‘...no adequate Hospital
accommodation has hitherto been provided for the relief of the Sick poor of
Dublin afflicted with fever (especially such as may be of a contagious Nature)’.
Influenced by the fever hospital movement in Britain, the provisional Committee
believed that the solution lay in the ‘establishment of a House of Recovery to
which patients on the first appearance of Fever might be removed’.1
 |
Original entrance to the hospital, erected 1804
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/7/1/6) |
Less
than three years later, on 14 May 1804, the newly-erected House of Recovery and
Fever Hospital on Cork Street admitted its first batch of patients. As its name
suggests, the hospital physically separated the sick from the convalescent by the
constructing two buildings 116 feet apart in what was an early attempt at infection
control.2
The erection of such purpose-built buildings was intentional, as the hospital’s
founders were influenced by prevailing theories regarding the control of
infectious diseases.
Early years and fever epidemics
 |
Cork Street Fever Hospital and House of Recovery, 1899
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/1/2/1/5) |
In
the early decades of the hospital’s existence its catchment area expanded from
the Dublin Liberties to the whole of the city. Hospital buildings were extended
to meet the admissions triggered by the regular epidemics which ravaged the
poorest districts in the city. A fever epidemic in 1817—1819 put severe
pressure on the hospital, with admissions doubling in 1818. In 1826 an epidemic
of typhus necessitated the erection of emergency tents. The 1830s and 1840s
were periods of exceptional activity, as the number of patients admitted swelled
due to outbreaks of cholera and typhus. In 1847 tents were erected and 400
emergency beds provided to allow for the admission of patients suffering from a
typhus outbreak, which had been stimulated in large part by the influx into
Dublin of thousands of famine-stricken refugees from the countryside. These
regular epidemics took their toll on the health of the medical staff, and in
particular the nursing staff, many of whom were struck down with fevers
contracted during the course of their work.
The 'Red House'
 |
Nurse and two children on the balcony of the Red House, 1909
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH1/2/1/6) |
In
the 1860s and 1870s epidemics of smallpox placed great pressure on the
hospital’s resources, with a record case fatality rate of 21 per cent recorded
in 1878. In the last few decades of the century measles, typhoid, scarlet fever
and smallpox predominated, prompting the hospital governors to build the ‘Red House’ on the grounds of Cork Street, and to open an auxiliary hospital for
convalescents at Beneavin, Finglas. In 1891, hospital reports recorded
diphtheria for the first time, a disease which became a significant health
problem in the early twentieth century with the arrival in Dublin of the
virulent gravis strain.
The move to Cherry Orchard
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Patient arriving at hospital in ambulance, 1896
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/1/2/1/5) |
In
the early twentieth century there were two changes that significantly altered
the running of the hospital: in 1904, the hospital was granted a Royal Charter
under which Dr. John Marshall Day was designated first Medical Superintendent;
and, in 1936, the Dublin Fever Hospital Act changed the hospital from voluntary
to municipal control. This alteration sought to “make provision for the
establishment of a new fever hospital in or near the city of Dublin and for the
closing of the House of Recovery and Fever Hospital, Cork Street, Dublin”.3
Planning for the development of a new hospital was long and protracted,
however, with both the Second Word War and a 1944 sworn inquiry into alleged
maladministration in the hospital contributing to delays. Led by the efforts of
Dr. Day’s successor as Medical Superintendent, Dr. C. J. McSweeney, a 74-acre
site was finally secured at Blackditch, Palmerstown, Co. Dublin, and building
tenders received in early 1950. The hospital board decided that as the name
Blackditch evoked images of plague and death, the address of the new hospital
should be changed to Cherry Orchard. In November 1953, patients and staff
vacated the premises at Cork Street and moved to the new House of Recovery and
Dublin Fever Hospital, Cherry Orchard.
The Cork Street Fever Hospital archive
 |
Staff of Cork Street Fever Hospital, 1938
Dr. C. J. McSweeney, Medical Superintendent, is
pictured sixth from the right in the second row
(RCPI Archival Collections: CSFH/1/3/4/1) |
The
archive of Cork Street Fever Hospital is large and varied, and consists of a series
of records relating to hospital management, staff, students, patients,
finances, buildings, hospital history and events. There are also records of
inquiries, routine administration and domestic tasks, and individual Medical
Superintendents. The run of minute books is remarkably complete, stretching
from the first meetings of the provisional managing committee in 1801 to 1953,
a span interrupted only by a gap of twelve years between 1828 and 1842. Similarly
annual reports, which usually include medical reports, run from 1801 to 1953
with few omissions. Records relating to individual Medical Superintendents are
particularly plentiful for Dr. C. J. McSweeney’s tenure (1934–1953), and consist
for the most part in report books, research and teaching notes, drafts of
articles and papers, and other ephemera. Patient records are, unfortunately, less
comprehensive, with the earliest surviving register of patients dating from
1924 to 1929. Access to patient records and other sensitive files containing
personal data are subject to Data Protection legislation and conditions laid
out in the RCPI Heritage Centre’s guidelines. There are also some records
across the various series which date from the decades following the transfer of
the hospital to Cherry Orchard.
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