A Commendable Achievement

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN

We know that the human race has suffered the effects of plagues since at least Biblical times and probably earlier. What do we know about their effects on Newcastle? The first well documented plague that we are all familiar with is the Black Death or bubonic plague. This is a bacterial infection that we now know is spread by fleas that live on rodents, in particular rats but is also spread between humans by contact. Although it is still present in Africa and South America, it can now be treated with antibiotics. However for many years there was no treatment, death could occur within a week of infection and mortality rates were very high. Bubonic Plague was recorded in the middle east in the 4th century but the pandemic that affected Europe started in the Middle Ages and lasted around four hundred years. It originated in Asia and spread across Europe as traders and their goods moved west. It is estimated to have killed around 50 million people in Europe. Newcastle was well placed to receive the plague; lots of ships arriving on the river bringing goods & of course rats. Most people lived in close proximity and insanitary conditions in the Quayside area. There was a major outbreak in 1589 killing at least seventeen hundred people from a population of around ten thousand. The plague returned in 1635, arriving first in North Shields then spreading to Newcastle the following year. This time, those who could fled the town to rural areas. There was no treatment for people who remained and infected families were often boarded up in their homes or in huts on the Town Moor and left to die. This outbreak lasted for almost nine months and killed around five thousand people. The town was devastated. Bubonic plague waned but infectious diseases were still a major cause of death. Scientists were becoming aware of the link between these diseases and public hygiene but little was done. Then Cholera arrived in the UK. This is another bacterial infection that originated in the far east and moved westwards. The UK Government believed that its spread was a result of poor living conditions in foreign countries, but it arrived in Sunderland in 1831, carried by a sailor, and soon spread. At the time, Cholera was believed to be spread by airborne particles but the main cause of infection is, in fact, polluted water sources. Only the wealthy had water supplies in their homes: most people relied on shared fountains or pumps. In 1831 reservoirs were low and water was being pumped from the Tyne; not a good idea. The council introduced measures such as shutting theatres and disinfecting the streets but to no avail. Bodies were buried in lime pits but this didn’t solve the problem. There were around 400 deaths in 1831 and around 1,500 in a later outbreak in 1853. This was from a total population of around 86,000 so it wasn’t on the scale of the plague but was still a serious problem. It was during this later outbreak that John Snow, a doctor who had worked in the north east but was by then in London, identified the source of an outbreak in Soho as the local water fountain. This led eventually to the control of the disease by improved water supplies and the introduction of sewers. There were more hospitals in the nineteenth century than in the sixteenth but they weren’t all free. A fever hospital opened on Bath Lane in Newcastle in 1804 to treat cases of cholera, typhoid and smallpox. This took both paying and poor patients so was always crowded. It was closed in 1888 when Walkergate Hospital opened. Smallpox was very common at this time. It is a viral infection that in the 19th century, killed about 30% of people who caught it. There was a Smallpox Hospital on the Town Moor which opened in 1882 and had 170 beds. A vaccine against Smallpox was one of the first developed. A more modern vaccine became available in the twentieth century and a worldwide vaccination programme led to the eradication of the disease. Despite the decline in Smallpox cases, the Newcastle hospital remained open treating scarlet fever, diphtheria and other infectious diseases until 1958. The great pandemic of the twentieth century was Spanish Flu in 1918-19. It wasn’t Spanish, in fact no-one seems to know where it started. Flu had been around for years and this pandemic took off when the world’s population was worn out by WW1 and troops were returning from war zones to their homes around the world. Government censors in countries that had fought the war weren’t keen to publicise it but Spain had been neutral, their government publicised it & it became known as Spanish Flu. It is estimated that 500 million were infected worldwide (about one third of the population) and at least 50 million died. In Newcastle it killed 1,537 people. The economic damage was significant as workplaces such as collieries had to close. It added significantly to post war woes. Attempts to make a vaccine were unsuccessful. The first effective flu vaccine wasn’t available until 1945. And finally, many of our older readers will remember the joy when a polio vaccination was developed in the nineteen fifties (particularly among those who got the sugar lump rather than the jab). Polio is a viral disease that had been around for centuries but flared up in a series of epidemics in Europe and the USA in the mid twentieth century. It can kill or leave people paralysed or disabled. It often affected children and there were many cases in the north east. Fortunately a vaccine was developed relatively quickly. A concerted worldwide vaccination programme has reduced the incidence of polio so that it is now only endemic in two countries; Pakistan and Afghanistan. Over the years effective treatments for infectious diseases have been developed, improved public and personal hygiene have helped prevent the spread of infections and of course vaccines have even eradicated some of these diseases. But as the last two years have shown, you never know what life is going to throw at you. So we all hope that we see the back of Covid before long.

Newcastle Smallpox Hospital