Last updated 19:42, Thursday, 26 June 2008

WILLIAM McGowan was presented with a “handsome key” back in 1927.

He used it to officially open the doors to the new Physico-Therapeutic Department at the Whitehaven and West Cumberland Hospital.

He, of all people, was entitled to the honour of opening this innovative hospital facility.

The Hospital Committee had intended to open such a department for some time. They’d even had plans drawn up for it.

But there was a problem. Money! Not enough of it! So they’d reluctantly decided to put the proposed new department on the back burner.

William McGowan didn’t think this was good enough and offered to pay for the work to be done. His offer was accepted.

It seems that the new department was not going to be new build.

It was to be situated in a sizeable basement room which was easily accessible via the main hall of the hospital.

This space was divided up into six cubicles, all big enough to house the new cutting edge technical equipment which enabled the hospital staff to effectively treat a wider range of ailments than before.

The new equipment was mostly electrical. “Medical electricity” was very much in vogue at the time.

One progressive Workington doctor had installed a mercury vapour lamp in his surgery – according to the local newspaper – which, annoyingly, failed to tell us which medic it was.

The Whitehaven department was equipped with ultra violet radiation apparatus, which consisted of “two open type carbon arc lamps, controlled by an adjacent switchboard.” A variety of other equipment was installed: radiant heat baths; an electric Multostat, and “a complete set of Schnee hydro baths.”

Treatment in one of these Schnee Four cell Hydro-Electric Baths involved the patient sitting on a chair, fully clothed, with arms and legs each shoved into conveniently sited buckets – through which appropriately prescribed current was passed – often a different current to each container.

I assume that it was used for treating muscular complaints. I also assume that the only place you’d find one nowadays is in a medical museum.

Unless, of course, you know any different.

Dr H Robertson was to be responsible for all the department’s electrical therapeutic treatment. All the equipment had been bought locally, from TS Bell & Co, electrical engineers, who also did all the installation work.

What really captured the imagination of the general public was the notion of “sunshine treatment.”

Much was made of Whitehaven Hospital, and the anonymous Workington doctor, being local pioneers in this form of treatment. But Member of Parliament, RS Hudson, felt obliged to write to the West Cumberland Times pointing out that the real pioneers in sunshine treatment had been the Whitehaven Infant Welfare Centre. He didn’t, annoyingly, specify in which year the centre acquired its equipment.

I’m intrigued by the notion of the new department being accommodated in what was an old basement. I wonder just how welcoming and high-tech it really was. From my experiences, albeit not in West Cumberland, such facilities were often situated in grubby areas, accessible only by negotiating long subterranean corridors, often adjacent to a boiler room.

Old hospitals weren’t always all they were made out to be. I know it’s an old hobby horse of mine, but by far too many of us romanticise the past too often.

I want to ask you a question. If you were seriously ill and needed treatment, in which year do you think you would have received the best hospital treatment – 1927, 1948, 1968 or 2008? If your answer is anything other than 2008, might I suggest you visit your local optician and trade in your rose tinted spectacles?