Four Medical Cases

Four medical cases that involve patients with bronchitis have been studied between the periods of 1866-1904. These cases can give an historian a large amount of information that can be used to understand more about the past. They give information surrounding the changes in treatment of bronchitis. They also give information about society such a class, religion and living conditions. Although, historians face challenges when trying to interpret old medical records, these can be overcome with perseverance.
The first case that was examined focuses on a man named William Angus who was first admitted when he was 78 . It is unknown what doctor attended to this patient. He is a groom servant for a local architect named Clayton . This means he is
It is also noted that she is a Salvationist. This was a pattern I saw from multiple decades that the doctor would note down the patient’s religion. She was admitted on May 5th 1896 and the doctor that saw to her was Dr Colquhoun. This patient appears to be from loss class as the doctor describes the patient as being malnourished and having a “general appearance of collapse and expression of helplessness” . The doctor notes that this patient has been living in poverty and therefore I can assume they are of low class . It seems like this patient had multiple illnesses and bronchitis was one of them. The doctor prescribes a poultice to be applied to the patient’s chest every four hours . This shows there may have been a change in the treatment of bronchitis because the two previous cases did not have this treatment. The patient is treated with a variety of medicine which change each night. In particular she is prescribed morphine and atropine which is again, different to previous prescribed drugs. It is then noted how the patient’s body responded to each treatment. The patient’s temperature is recorded each day which suggests that the doctor recognises a change in temperature can show if the medicine is working . The doctor also takes note of the patient’s urine which was not done in the previous cases . This could mean that there was new knowledge about what a doctor could discover about a
However, there are ways to overcome these difficulties. For the four cases mentioned, there does not seem to be any major changes in the treatment. There is perhaps changes in the medicine that was given to the patient but I would need to review more bronchitis cases from the time periods to be able to make a better judgement. There also seems to be a change in the increased amount of focus into family and personal medical history and how that may affect the patient’s current illness. Alternative methods seem to be increasingly used such as poultices or sponging the body with cold water. By looking at these medical records we can understand more about society such as the social classes of people, the conditions they lived in, where they are from and more. By using old hospital records, even though it can be difficult, an historian can uncover a large amount of