This Week in World War One, 26th March 1915

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Berwick Advertiser title 1915

26th March 1915

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

SABBATH FOOTBALL

 

Sir,-One of the saddest sights was to be witnessed on Sunday last in the “Stanks” where some of our countries defenders thought so little of the Sabbath Day as to play football, aye, and that at almost a stone’s throw from the doors of several churches. To say the least, it is bad grace, and if the soldiers cannot keep the Sabbath Day holy they ought at any rate be taught to keep it respectable. I know there is a great difference of opinion on this question, but to my mind the old proverb “a Sunday well spent brings a week of content,” is a good thing to follow and I would heartily commend it to Sunday footballers, in fact to all who make the Sabbath a day of pleasure. If there was any necessity for using the Sabbath Day for football it would only be so because the soldiers were kept at drill, marching, and guarding during the whole of the other six days of the week, but this is not the case, for they appear to have plenty of leisure if one might judge by seeing the numbers who parade the streets.

Yours etc.

SABATARIAN.

The Stanks seen from Brass Bastion
The Stanks, the area is still used as a football pitch today. Ref: BRO 1639/9/19

 

Severe Snowstorm

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North Easterly Gale

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Traffic Disorganised

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Rigorous Condition for Hill Flocks

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After a spell of spring weather there was a sharp change to conditions of an extremely wintry character. The snowfall that began in some districts on Wednesday became general over the greater part of Scotland during Thursday. In the early hours of Friday morning, and in some districts during the day also, large quantities of snow fell. With a violent north easterly gale, the powdery snow was swirled in dense, blinding clouds, and blown into deep wreaths, with the result that throughout the country there was serious disorganisation of railway traffic, while highways were blocked, and the conditions are such as to cause some anxiety to hill flocks.

BERWICK

A severe snowstorm from the east swept over Berwick and Border district on Thursday. Much damage was done to telegraph wires, which in some parts of the town were hanging down into the street. Outdoor work in the town and district was almost entirely suspended. The storm was the worst experienced in Berwick for about five years, the last to which it is comparable having occurred in a Christmas week, when for two whole days Berwick was entirely isolated. There was a good deal of dislocation of the public services. Blocks were common on most of the railways that were in any way exposed. Snow ploughs were busy all over the North British system, and within a few hours most of the blocks were removed; but on the main lines there was severe drifting…

…The most serious results of the storm, so far as communications were concerned, were with regard to telegraphs and telephones, the Post Office having no outlet for messages for several hours. Telegraph wires were blown down in many parts of the town. At Berwick Station a telegraph pole was blown down and the wires had to be cut to enable it to be lifted. Several other poles in and around the town were leaning over at dangerous angles and, generally, telegraph work was greatly interfered with.

Country postmen had a terrible task, and some were unable to complete their journeys. The motor cycle post to Ford was also cut off, but the delivery was attempted by trap. Country roads were badly blocked. On the Letham Road and the “Glaury Loaning,” for instance, snow was lying in large drifts right across the roads level with the tops of the hedges. Flock-masters on the more exposed parts of the Corporation Estate had a very anxious time, having to dig out their lambs from drifts several feet in depth. A curious result of the snowstorm was that Berwick Town Clock became snow blocked on the east side and stopped at 8:30 – it was not cleared and put right until a minute before noon. A very heavy sea was running on the Berwickshire coast, and near the mouth of the Tweed it was only with great difficulty that salmon fishing was carried on. Practically the same conditions were prevailing on Friday morning, there having been a heavy fall of snow on Thursday night and during the early hours of the morning.

 

Advert for W. A. Johnston & Sons
Advert for W. A. Johston & Sons from the Berwick Advertiser 26th March 1915

Surgical Procedures – Curettage & Skin Graft

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The second in our series of posts on some of the surgical procedures carried out at Stannington focuses on the use of curettage and a skin graft to treat tuberculous skin infections.

 

Patient 84/37 was male and aged 13 ½ when he was admitted to Stannington on 16th December 1938 diagnosed with TB of other organs and an old ankylosed ankle joint.  He had previously been in the sanatorium from June 1936 to July 1938 suffering from TB of the right ankle which had healed but since his discharge in July 1938 he had developed a tuberculous skin infection on his right ankle overlaying the original tuberculous focus.  This sort of infection might be referred to today as scrofuloderma where there is a direct extension of the tuberculous disease from underlying structures, such as the bone, to the skin.  A report on his condition on admittance reads as follows:

 

‘Large sinus R ankle, healed, but skin lower part reddened & thin & scabbed.  Healed sinus R knee & 3 healed on thigh and 1 on leg.  Mobility good’

 

HOSP-STAN-07-01-02-296_07
Figure 2 – HOSP/STAN/7/1/2/296_07
HOSP-STAN-07-01-02-296_04
Figure 1 – HOSP/STAN/7/1/2/296_04

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Radiographs taken of his right ankle during his second stay in the sanatorium show the tuberculous ankle to be healed and therefore not causing medical staff any great concern.  Figure 1 is a radiograph taken in1939 for which the report reads, ‘no bone lesion in the right foot’, and figure 2 was taken in 1940 with the report stating that there are ‘bony ankyloses of ankle joint’.

 

Throughout his stay comments in his case file reveal the scar on his ankle to be thin, unsound and broken down.  Given that at this time there were no antibiotics available to treat this skin infection a commonly used minor surgical procedure was opted for.  On 9th August 1940 curettage was performed on an area on the lateral side of the right ankle with a Thiersch skin graft.  Curettage simply refers to the removal of the infected tissue using a surgical tool called a curette.  A Thiersch skin graft is a split-thickness graft that can be quite thin and involves the removal of the epidermis and part of the dermis from a donor site elsewhere on the patient’s body, which can then be placed in narrow strips over the wound.  By November of 1940 it was noted that the skin graft had taken well, was soundly healed, and that there was good movement of the foot at the 1st metatarsal joint.  He was discharged quiescent on 19th November 1940 with the procedure having been a success.

 

Sources:

B. Kumar and S. Dogra, ‘Cutaneous Tuberculosis’, in Skin Infecitons: Diagnoisis and Treatment, Edited by J. C. Hall and B. J. Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)

L. Teot, P. E. Banwell, & U. E. Ziegler, Surgery in Wounds, (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 2004)

Safe Milk Supplies

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We touched upon the problems of infected milk supplies in a previous posting on abdominal TB and we’ll focus on the issue in more detail here.  Mycobacterium bovis is the pathogen responsible for the development of TB in cattle, which is commonly referred to as bovine TB.  The consumption of milk from cows infected with bovine TB and in turn the ingestion of mycobacterium bovis can lead to an individual developing TB.  This was for many years a very common cause of TB in humans and remains so in countries that do not routinely pasteurise milk.  Pasteurisation involves the heating of the milk in such a way as to kill off any bacteria that might be present, and through its use the spread of bovine TB to humans has nearly been eradicated in the UK.

 

The 1875 Public Health Act made it compulsory for local authorities to appoint a Medical Officer of Health (MoH) who produced an annual report detailing any health and sanitary issues in the district as well as giving a wealth of statistical information related to birth and death rates, population, infectious diseases and causes of death.  The MoH for Northumberland makes regular reports on the situation in the county regarding tuberculosis including comments on the causes of abdominal tuberculosis and efforts made to prevent its spread.  In the 1906 report he states:

“That about 30 per cent of the milch cows in England are tuberculous, and that consequently infants and persons suffering dangerous illness are in many cases being fed milk containing the organisms of tuberculosis” [NRO 3897/3, 1906 p.21]

The problem of infected animal products is clearly recognised by medical and sanitary officials early on in the 20th century but little is done to tackle the situation head on and so abdominal tuberculosis continues to be a significant problem.  Three years later in 1909 the MoH expresses his frustration at the situation and lack of power to change it:

“The elimination of tuberculosis from dairy herds is a matter of great difficulty since, at present, no assistance is given, by the state, to the farmer who, for the benefit of the general public as well as for his own advantage, may wish to obtain a herd free from this disease.”  [NRO 3897/3, 1909 p.33]

It is not until the 1940s that significant steps were taken to introduce tuberculin tested milk and encourage pasteurization.

“The eradication of tuberculosis from our milk supplies is a matter of greatest importance to us all, and it is encouraging to note the marked increase in the production of milk from tuberculin tested cows.  45% of all the milk produced in the County was from such herds, and it is known that in 1948 the proportion had risen to more than 50%.” [NRO 4081/1, 1947 p.8]

 

HOSP/STAN/11/1/51 Boys at work on the farm
HOSP/STAN/11/1/51
Boys at work on the farm

 

Milk supplies were something given great consideration by those responsible for the establishment of Stannington Sanatorium from the outset.  In 1905, two years before the official opening of the sanatorium, a farm colony was established on the site to take in young boys and provide them with training.  It was from here that the sanatorium was able to receive a safe supply of milk from tuberculin tested cows.  Tuberculin testing is another method used in preventing the spread of bovine TB whereby the cows were tested to see whether they carried mycobacterium bovis rather than treating the milk itself.  This method was used quite commonly early on before the onset of widespread pasteurisation and would have been essential to the recovery of many of the patients and in preventing any of them acquiring any further infection.  As time goes on, and tuberculin testing and pasteurisation is implemented more widely across the county, it is notable when looking at the patient files that instances of abdominal TB decrease particularly as we enter the 1950s.

 

Sources:

ALLISON, T. M. (1908) Children’s Sanatorium, Stannington, Northumberland, British Journal of Tuberculosis, 2 (3), p.204

SCHOFIELD, P. F. (1985) Abdominal Tuberculosis, Gut, 26 (12), pp.1275-1278

NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES: NRO 03897, Northumberland County Council: County Medical Officer of Health Reports, 1893-1935

NORTHUMBERLAND ARCHIVES: NRO 04081, Northumberland Health Authority: Records, 1942-1970

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