Common diagnosis - admissions book
- arthritis, paralysis, skin disease
Senior surgeon (feeling pulse) - Jeremiah Pierce - also Governor until 1761, born 1696, died 1765
Physician Dr William Oiver 1695-1764 - built house - now called Battlefields
Common complaints seen at the hospital - arthritis (osteoartritis), by end of 18th c large numbers of rheumatoid artritis - swellings
gout also popularCondition treated - palsy with colic - Devonshire colic - later shown to be due to lead poisoning - affected poor people - those paid with cider - lead used in the cider presses
Honoray physician - Dr Rice Charleton published - analysis on paralytic cases admitted to the hospital - but failed to associate those cases with lead poisoning - this was left to the King's physician - Sir George Baker.
Immersian in thermal mineral water was consisered to accelerate lead excrection from the body.Other considered that there was no proof that mineral water was any better than ordinary water and some stated - William Cullen that the poor should stay at home and take hot baths there.
Other sceptics - Smollet, William Saunders and William Heberden
Many people - chronic skin diseases came to Bath - many supposed they had leprosy - infact - scabies, psoriasis (leprosy had died out with the Tudors)
Symptoms - chronic rash - scaling, thickening
Patients with skin disease - 10%-15%
1752-64 - 241 admissions - 122 considered cured
