Sickness and health
| TREATMENT OF illness in the
earliest times depended entirely on folklore remedies and herbal medicines
although those who dispensed these cures were thought to have supernatural
powers and often treated as witches. The ancient Greeks pursued medicine
as a science and the Romans were aware of public hygiene, providing clean
drinking water, building sewers, and even hospitals to care for their sick
and injured soldiers. When they left, Britain entered the Dark Ages, a period in which cultural awareness declined and society became riddled with superstition about medicine and it was not until the Renaissance which marked a new period of interest in art and science throughout Europe that people became curious about how the human body worked and so began our present awareness of personal health. By the 19th century several doctors or surgeons as they were then known were practising in Bourne and patients would call for a diagnosis or to seek medicine but more often they were so sick that he visited them in their own homes, taking pills and potions with him and sometimes carrying out operations on the kitchen table. This often meant either a long walk or ride by horseback which could be dangerous because roads were few and the cart tracks often muddy and riddled with deep potholes. One of the five doctors at that time was Octavius Munton who lived in West Street and went about his business on horseback to reach the sick and dying in outlying areas and it was on such a visit that he met his own untimely death. In 1863, while returning from attending a patient at Morton village, his horse shied and threw him to the ground and although neighbours ran to his assistance, he died in agony from a fractured skull soon afterwards. He was only 57 years old. Another distinguished physician was Dr John Galletly who practised during the early years of the 20th century and was frequently called out to remote farmsteads in the fen, often on dark and windy nights. In his memoirs, he recalled regular visits to Tongue End, four miles away, either on bicycle or by pony and trap, to attend mothers about to give birth, always hoping that they would leave a lighted candle in the window to guide him to the door. But death was ever present and in 1904, a little boy from the workhouse died in the playground during the morning break at the Abbey Primary School from consumption, the name then given to tuberculosis which was caused by poor food and living conditions. The town in those days was served by two doctors’ surgeries, Dr Galletly's practice in North Street and at Brook Lodge in South Street, and both were busy because illness was a regular occurrence although many of the diseases have since been eradicated or brought under control, such as smallpox, cholera, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, chicken pox and measles. Today, these surgeries have been replaced by the specially built Hereward Practice in Exeter Street and the Galletly Practice in North Road, operating from Dr Galletly's old home which has been considerably improved and extended, and both staffed with a large number of doctors and nurses dealing with several thousand patients each year. Since the beginning of the National Health Service in 1948, medical care has also changed dramatically with the disappearance of many illnesses and infections and the introduction of a policy of prevention rather than cure through regular health checks together with a wide variety of ancillary services for young and old alike.
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