Health News - Medical historian Richard Barnett to give tour at Bloomsbury Festival

Published: 14 October, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

THE latest points of focus on London’s history trail are not buildings or statues but disease-causing microbes, spurious treatments and long-dead men of the stethoscope.

Next weekend two free walking tours sponsored by renowned Euston Road-based the Wellcome Collection will take place as part of the three-day Bloomsbury Festival.

They will be led by Richard Barnett, a respected medical historian and the author of City of Diseases, City of Cures and Medical London, who says Camden and Islington are home to some of the most significant sites in British medical history.

“The secret to a good tour is to reveal the story behind the buildings,” says Dr Barnett, “to bring the dead out from their graves – although necromancy is not really our profession.”

One of the stops on his tour will be Harley Street, which became a base for doctors in the 19th century.

“There is this view that all medicine in Harley Street was for the rich,” says Dr Barnett.

“But the important question is how did that particular street come to be a centre for medicine.

“The answer is that it was down to the railways. In the 1850s the first terminal was built at Euston.

So why not didn’t all the doctors set up shop in Gordon Square or around there? Well, that was because the lines to Euston went to the North, which was poor, but trains from the rich places like Oxford came into Paddington – a relatively short ride down the Euston Road from Harley Street.”

But while it had a favourable reputation among the well-to-do, Harley Street was not necessarily the best place to go if you were unwell.

Dr Barnett tells the story of John St John Long, an Irishman who became known as the “Quack Doctor of Harley Street” in the 1800s because he treated consumption with a potion made of egg yolk, vinegar and turpentine.

“It was like a mix of cement and paint stripper,” says Dr Barnett.

“He would smear it on the patient or have them breathe in the fumes.”

Three of Long’s patients died and he was found guilty of manslaughter and fined £250 – a large sum of money in those days – and allowed to carry on practising.

“He was a very handsome chap,” says Dr Barnett. “He had obviously kissed the Blarney stone because there was a group of young women at his trial and they all clubbed round and collected the money to pay the fine for him.”

Ironically, Long himself died of consumption shortly afterwards.

For the poor and those living in the countryside, meanwhile, monks, nuns and “wise men” had long been the only source of medical advice.

Doctors would often prescribe by post – perhaps after analysing a sample of urine that had been sent to them – because of lengthy journey times.

And what would they prescribe? “In a word, opium,” says Dr Barnett.

“It was one of the best palliatives for all sorts of pain and suffering.

They also had various purgatives – things to make you sick or go to the loo.

From the 17th century they also prescribed quinine for malaria, but medicine in the 19th century lay very much on hope – you could say it still does today in some ways.”

After the Second World War, the government’s approach to health changed dramatically with the creation of the National Health Service – a development that Dr Barnett says was inspired by the Finsbury Health Centre, the now threatened building that started life in the 1920s which “was one of the most important sites in British medical history”.

One of the walks Dr Barnett has developed takes in the Finsbury Health Centre as well as nearby Spa Fields, the site of the notorious “Bonehouse Outrage”, which helped accelerate advancements in sanitation and the disposal of dead bodies.

• Dead Famous, a guided walk by Richard Barnett, takes place on Saturday, October 23 from 11am-1pm.

A second walk, In Sickness and in Health, will take place on Sunday, October 24 from 11am-1pm.

Walks start and finish at the Wellcome Collection, NW1. Tickets will be available to festival-goers on the day.

Sign up early at the information stalls in Russell Square to avoid disappointment.

For more information call 020 7130 350.