Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on July 10, 2007
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkm042
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‘Because of Poverty brought into Hospital: ... ‘ A Casenote-Based Analysis of the Changing Role of the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital, 1850–1912
* Department of Economic and Social History, School of History and Classics, University of Edinburgh, William Robertson Building, 50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY, UK. E-mail: a.nuttall{at}ed.ac.uk
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Abstract |
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Summary Although the shift from a social to a medical function which occurred in nineteenth-century general hospitals has been explored, the occurrence of such a change in maternity hospitals has not been considered. Recent analyses of such institutions have examined particular aspects only, and thus give a somewhat static picture. This paper uses analysis of patient records (themselves an under-exploited resource) to explore the changing function of the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital from a provider of shelter during childbirth to the destitute to a source of skilled medical care. It concludes that, although the Hospital had adopted the outward features of a medical institution by 1890, its casebooks suggest that its purpose only decisively changed in the early twentieth century, and thus can perhaps be more appropriately linked with national anxiety regarding the health of babies and their mothers.
Keywords: Edinburgh; maternity hospitals; patients; personal health records; childbirth; casenotes; casebooks; maternal and child welfare