Dr Catherine Louisa Corbett MB ChB DPH (1877–1960), Diary in Serbia. Her work with the Scottish Women's Hospitals in Serbia and Russia, 1915–1917

Catherine Corbett was the second woman to gain a medical degree from the University of Manchester Medical School in 1905; however, little was known about her life or work, apart from the fact that she was a School Medical Inspector (SMI) and never married. The rediscovery of her Diary in Serbia (1916) has revealed her work for the Scottish Women's Hospitals (SWH) during the First World War in Serbia (1915–1916). Her time alongside her female colleagues was a good experience, however the harsh conditions, especially those she experienced during a further period working in Russia (1916–1917), left her exhausted and psychologically stressed. After the war, her job as a SMI in Burnley and her pursuit of rock climbing helped her adjust to a normal life and allowed her to promote her views on female education.

Edgar Leigh Collis: Industrial lung disease and ergonomics

Edgar Collis was appointed as the second Medical Inspector of Factories in 1908, holding the post until the outbreak of the First World War when he became Medical Director of the Ministry of Munitions. After the war, he was appointed to the chair in public health in the University of Wales. He held this post while living in Lossiemouth in Scotland, some 570 miles distant. His research interests were in industrial lung disease, industrial hygiene, and the health of coal miners. He made important contributions to the first and third subjects, but was a less significant figure in the field of industrial hygiene. Among his achievements were the recognition of the relationship between silicosis and tuberculosis, the harmful effects of non-silicaceous coal dust, and the need to fit the worker to the job, and the job to the worker.

HISTORY OF THE ACTIVITY OF RUSSIA’S ANTIPLAGUE SERVICE IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

The paper deals with the history of controlling the outbreaks occurring in 1911-1914. It gives the chain of affairs of statesmen (including principal medical inspector L. N. Malinovsky) in controlling plague. The activities of the Tsaritsyno bacteriology station (its head was medical bacteriologist A. A. Churilina) and the Chita bacteriology station (its head was medical bacteriologist I. S. Dudchenko) are analyzed.

Ridding London of smallpox: the aerial transmission debate and the evolution of a precautionary approach

SUMMARYThe efforts of the Metropolitan Asylums Board in Victorian London to isolate cases of smallpox in hospitals, and so limit its spread, set off a controversy about ‘hospital influence’, i.e. alleged escapes of the disease into the neighbourhood. When, in 1870, the Board began to gather cases of smallpox into its new intra-urban isolation hospitals, nearby householders resisted, and in 1881 their fear of aerial transmission was endorsed by a government medical inspector, W. H. Power. Not all agreed with Power, but as a result from 1885 the Board removed almost all known cases of smallpox in London to hospital ships moored in the Thames Estuary. The ships failed to provide adequate and secure accommodation, however, and so Board smallpox hospitals were erected on the adjacent Dartford marshes. After 1903, there being no more smallpox epidemics in Britain, these isolation hospitals and many similar ones outside other towns and cities were little used for their main intended purpose. Their retention for many years thereafter can be seen as an application of the precautionary principle; it bears on current contingency plans in Britain and elsewhere for dealing with serious epidemics.