What is Prorogation?

This marks the end of a parliamentary session. This is the time between the end of one session and the State Opening of Parliament which begins the next session.
This year the State Opening of Parliament for the 2008-09 session will take place on Wednesday 3rd December 2008.

Celebrate Edinburgh's libraries!

There's a week-long celebration of Edinburgh's libraries starting on Saturday 8th November. There's something for everyone in the programme, with walks, tours, hands-on sessions, poetry readings, politics, films, music and meet-and-greet-the-author sessions. Oh, and there'll be an Official Publications person (Elaine Simpson) to help you at the launch!

Are we headed for another Great Depression?

Maybe not yet, and maybe never, but arguments about government's role in regulating the financial sector raged pretty much as they're doing now when President Roosevelt introduced his New Deal in 1933, including reforming banking practices such as pushing through the Emergency Banking Act. The Library of Congress has a great resources page on just about everything you wanted to know about the New Deal.

Scottish Government spending plans

During the global economic slowdown/crash/financial meltdown/end-of-civilisation-as-we-know-it/crisis/credit crunch/mess it's worth having a look at the Scottish Government's draft budget for 2009-10 to see what their spending plans are and where they may affect you most.

Who'd have thought root-blight was so pretty...?

At last our Medical History of British India leaflets have arrived. We distributed 200 of these at the recent Society for the Social History of Medicine conference in Glasgow, and will be leaving a trail of them wherever we go....

They're very eye-catching and the cover features what looks like a flower in bloom - it's actually root-blight in solanum melongena (aubergine), from Scientific memoirs by Medical Officers of the Army of India, Part X published in 1897.

Sex, lies and red tape

The Lock Hospitals were part of a system to control the spread of venereal disease amongst troops in India in the latter part of the 19th century.
There are 5 volumes of reports on the working of these hospitals in the Medical History of British India project and they have returned from being filmed and scanned. Of all the collections in the project I find this the most extraordinary, giving lively and unrestrained accounts of the Imperialist implementation of the Indian Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864 and 1868.
To protect soldiers from disease prostitutes were encouraged to register and be examined weekly. However, some did not bow to the authorities and continued to ply their trade any way they could: “a woman, believed to have been a source of much mischief, was found in the lines, living in a rum-barrel.” (North-Western Provinces, 1878) Click on the image that accompanies this post to see the full page containing this quote.
The authors of the reports did not disguise their feelings about the native women, many of whom were driven to prostitution through poverty and addiction: “It is worse than useless retaining these hags on the register; they should be turned out of cantonments, and a younger, less repulsive class of women substituted. Until something of this kind happens the Lock Hospital is not likely to prove a success.” (R. M. Edwards, 1877)
Anyone interested in governmentality, colonial medicine and power, history of prostitution and military health will find these reports fascinating. Lock Hospitals were not just used in India; the London Lock Hospital opened in 1747 and as recent as the 1940s there was one on Fantome Island, North Queensland, which treated Aboriginal people.

Serving by the Code

One of my absolute favourite items that I have worked with in the Medical History of British India project is Code of medical and sanitary regulations for the guidance of medical officers serving in the Madras Presidency. This two volume work, published in 1870, gives copious detail about the career and duties of medical officers. There are details of pay and leave, travelling on duty, sanitary regulations, medical stores, hospital supplies, transport of troops and dress regulations. Click on the image to view a soldier's medical history form.
If your ancestor was a medical officer in Madras around this time then these books give a full picture of their working conditions. To those interested in colonial medicine the appendices give examples of forms used by the Government to collect information and aid administration.

Still Sexy and Powerful?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's report on women and society, "Sex and Power", makes fairly depressing reading. It reveals that the advancement of women has slowed considerably in the last few years. In fact, one of the most startling facts is that "A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in 212 years, just slightly longer than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in Parliament."
What's stopping us? Greater recognition of the importance of flexible working (enforced by legislation) may not yet have had a chance to kick in, but there are wider issues. Maybe we just don't want to "have it all" anymore, after all it's hard work being a career woman, mum, lover, housemaid, cook, cleaner, chauffeur...

Brave New (Digital) World…

The move in publishing to digital from more traditional print methods is reflected in OPU’s growing number of electronic and other non-print resources.

These include:

• Bird sounds of Madagascar, an audio guide to the island's unique birds
  
• Interactive historical resources such as The Act of Union, 1707 and Looking for Vikings
  
• Videos about adult literacies like That first step …
  
• CDs and DVDs produced to accompany National Qualifications exam papers (for example Urdu Standard Grade: credit listening and Music Advanced Higher )
  
• Official Driving Standards Agency complete theory test and complete learner resource packs for learner drivers

Military menus

Today, while tidying some shelves, I found the Indian Manual of Military Cooking. This is dated 1906 and was prepared at the Indian Army School of Cookery.
I was surprised to find that some of the culinary choices were attractive, a far cry from the jail dietaries and hospital menus I have seen in other India Papers volumes. For example, there are recipes for Irish Stew, Hot Pot, Sea Pie, Toad-in-the-Hole, Rissoles, Roast Goose with Stuffing and Omelette with Fine Herbs.
There is a wide range of soups - tomato, pea, barley, lentil, vegetable and rice. Mrs. Lockhart's recipe for chutney consists of apples or apricots, raisins, onions, ginger, sugar, red chillies, garlic, salt; it may have proved a tasty accompaniment to the Turkish Pillau. The Army enjoyed plenty of desserts, including Plum Pudding, Apple Pies, Treacle Pudding, Current Rolls, Muffins, Pancakes, Jam Rolls and Arrowroot Blanc Mange.
Perhaps the aggressive TV chefs that we see lately should follow the instructions given to the Sergeant Cook on the first page: "Patience and tact are required, especially with young soldiers, in training them in their duties as cooks."

Civil Veterinary Departments of British India

We've worked successfully with our partners at the Centre for the Social History of Health & Healthcare in Glasgow for several years now, and our most fruitful enterprise has been the Medical History of British India website (see also past posts on this blog). We have a postgraduate student to work with us on our civil vet papers and publications (phase 3 of the website project) again generously funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Cholera and cricket

If you are searching for an entry point into the Medical History of British India project I can recommend the Indian Medical Review. Written in 1938 by Major-General E.W.C. Bradfield, Director-General of the Indian Medical Service, this volume covers hospitals and dispensaries, medical education, tuberculosis, maternity, medico-legal work, medical societies, pharmacy and drugs control. There is a fascinating section on medical research in India, describing work carried out on key diseases such as malaria, cholera and leprosy, and also giving the histories and activities of medical institutions, some of which feature in the Medical Colleges collection. The Indian Medical Review features at the start of this collection and is at shelfmark IP/QB.3. In his leisure time I have discovered that Earnest William Charles Bradfield was a keen cricketer, so not only did he contribute to the British Empire's spread of medical practices but also to its sporting ones. He played for the Europeans (India) team from 1906-1923 in several Bombay and Madras Presidency matches. I would love to see some footage or photographs of those games!

New Lives for Old

There's a great new book published by the National Archives (Kew) about poor children sent overseas to all corners of our old Empire (Australia, New Zealand, Canada). These kids were from workhouses and slums, sent by charities and other organisations to have a (hopefully) better life elsewhere. It's full of first-hand accounts, pictures and letters and is a moving story about a practice which didn't end until the second world war.

You can read it here at the Library, shelfmark GRO.2008.4.1.

Historic maps online

Ordnance Survey maps are official publications, but we send them all to our map expert colleagues over at Causewayside. You don't have to go there, though, to see them all. You can now access the OS 6-inch maps online. These particular OS maps date from 1843 to 1882, when Ordnance Survey carried out its earliest comprehensive survey of Scotland. They're significant because they illustrated a very wide range of natural and man-made features for the first time and they were the most detailed series covering the whole of Scotland.

You can also see the OS large scale town plans (1847 - 1895).

History of medicine on TV

BBC Four's new five part series called Blood and Guts: A History of Surgery starts at 9pm tonight. Presented by the medically trained Michael Mosley, each episode covers a different branch of surgery.
I was browsing the volumes about Calcutta Medical Institutions in which doctors were evaluating Joseph Lister's antiseptic methods. The 1880 report has a section by the First Surgeon, K. McLeod in which he writes, "I have come to consider it a sacred and imperative duty to endeavour, to the best of my ability and means, to prevent every breach of surface, whether wound or sore, from becoming the seat of septic change; and if it has already done so, to correct the vice and restore it to sweetness." Click on the image to see more about McLeod's antiseptic methods in Calcutta in the mid 1880's.
McLeod came to Edinburgh in 1876 and on following Lister in his wards, realised that he hadn't been carrying out the procedure in accordance with Lister's teaching. He returned to India determined to demonstrate "strict Listerism." Mortality rates were seen to fall after surgery when using antiseptic methods. It is due to the painstaking work of doctors like McLeod that surgery was made much more effective and less fatal.
No doubt the BBC programme will show others like him, so I am very much looking forward to watching it. There is a BBC book by Richard Hollingham to accompany the series.

The founding of Australia

After my first visit Down Under in April/May this year, I'm mad on all things Aussie. I was delighted to find this fantastic resource on the website of the State Library of New South Wales From Terra Australis to Australia. It's got drawings, maps and paintings, and letters from the First Fleet which bring this historic event to life.
I'd highly recommend a couple of books to anyone interested in this period, The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, and The Commonwealth of thieves by Thomas Keneally.

Earthquakes, tidal waves... and general disasters

The National Risk Register is intended to
capture the range of emergencies that might have
a major impact on all, or significant parts of, the UK.
It provides a national picture of the risks the country faces,
and is designed to complement Community Risk
Registers, already produced and published locally by
emergency planners. The driver for this work is the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 which also defines
what the government means by emergencies, and what
responsibilities are placed on emergency responders
in order to prepare for them.

A plague on all your houses

As you can tell, we're all a little bit obsessed with things medical here! Just to continue the theme, you can see the first medical book printed in Scotland in the "Imprentit: 500 years of the Scottish printed word" exhibition. Written by Gilbert Skeyne, "Ane breue Descriptioun of the Pest" was published in 1568, the year over 2,000 people were killed by the disease in Edinburgh. The author, a physician of King James VI, exhorted the population to "returne to God" to defeat the plague.

There are, of course, official publications in the exhibition, too.

Tracing ancestors who served in India

Did you have an ancestor who served in India? Was he a surgeon or a major? Do you know which regiment your ancestor was in? If you have a starting point such as the date and occupation then by using the East India Register (shelfmark GIF.16, from 1802-1947) you can find out many details such as uniform colours, date of rank, retirement and descriptions of occupations. Some volumes contain records of births, marriages and deaths. It is possible to track someone's career through these records and build up a vivid picture of their life and work in India.
Find out about more resources by clicking on the India Papers Family History page.

In the army now

The first part of the Army Health collection is now available on microfilm, at Mf.IP.23-Mf.IP.32. You can read reports from areas of India such as Bengal, Bombay and Madras detailing the living conditions of the soldiers stationed there.
Adjusting to life in India was hard for the British soldier and often men did not achieve two years' service. The hot and humid climate, coupled with the heavy uniforms, gave rise to many cases of heatstroke, "The men become inert, spiritless and weak, lose flesh and appetite. No medicine is of any good." (Bengal, 1874)
The soldiers were vulnerable to diseases like cholera, rabies, malaria, plague, dysentery and typhus; these were seemingly more virulent due to the heat. To ward off the depression from cool nights following hot days "men received a draught of quinine, cinchona and arsenic and the spirit-drinkers had each a small ration of rum." (Bengal, 1876)
If the men (and their families) survived disease, they could be bitten by snakes or suffer from shoebite -"The contusions were nearly all caused by bad fitting boots when on the march." (Bombay, 1872).
Exercise and diet are recorded in much detail so as to monitor the general health of the men, "Athletic exercise, wrestling, single-stick, clubs, running, leaping &tc are much practised. A few men do a little gardening." (Bengal, 1876) The native soldiers seemed, one officer notes, to take fondly to English games such as cricket and football.
You can also browse through tables of mortality rates and hospital admissions, look at sick rates and invaliding statistics for different regiments and even discover how much rain fell. Click on the image to view a statistics page listing deaths of Madras officers. These reports give us a colourful picture, not only showing us what life was like for the troops but also how the Government was trying to sustain military authority through medicine and sanitation.

Gas & electricity bills....

The House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee's investigation into the utilities market
"Energy prices, fuel poverty and Ofgem" throws up some interesting facts about why gas and electricity costs have risen so sharply recently. Concluding that the utilities companies haven't actually been fixing prices, nevertheless having only "6 big players" in the market makes it harder to introduce much in the way of competitive pricing.

Out for the count

With advances in surgery and medicine happening all the time, have you ever considered what the early days of surgery were like? To relieve some of the pain of, for example, having a limb amputated or a bladder stone removed, patients were given opium, alcohol or simply knocked unconscious with a blow to the head. Nitrous oxide gas (laughing gas) was used to knock out patients during dental work in the mid 1800s and this was followed by the first surgical use of ether in 1842. Chloroform had been around since 1831; in 1847 James Young Simpson of Edinburgh found out about its quick acting properties when he sampled some and ended up under his dining room table.
The India Papers contains the Report of the Hyderabad Chloroform Commission from 1891, when Edward Lawrie was investigating the alleged dangers of chloroform. Deaths had occured under chloroform and scientists at the time were attempting to discover whether fatalities were due to heart or respiratory failure. The report covers over 400 detailed animal experiments and 54 human surgical trials. It also contains much correspondence from doctors via The Lancet. Dudley W. Buxton wrote in 1890: "Without fear or dread must he [the anaesthetist] be prepared to give one or the other anaesthetic, but he must be keenly alive to all the possible contigencies of each, and not live in a fool's paradise that if he only obeys certain rules and directions he and his patient are safe."