Letters to and from his home cost postage of two shillings and nine pence each way until the penny post was introduced in 1840
Dr Patrick Rowan reviews a limited-edition book that chronicles one doctor’s working life in adverse social and medical conditions.
Dr Atthill, in his Recollections, recounts his remarkable medical career and describes the adverse environment in the Dublin in which he was practising.
He qualified as a doctor at the age of 19 and his medical positions included that of working as a dispensary medical officer, as physician to the Adelaide Hospital and finally as Master of the Rotunda Hospital.
This book was originally published in 1911, the year after the author’s death, and is now issued in a limited edition of 750 copies because of its contribution to Irish medical and social history.
Dr Lombe Atthill was born in 1827 and was the son of the Church of England Rector of Drumcree, near Portadown. He spent some time at a school in England. Letters to and from his home cost postage of two shillings and nine pence each way until the penny post was introduced in 1840.
At the age of 16, he came to Dublin to be apprenticed to Dr Maurice Collis, a surgeon at the Meath Hospital, who insisted that the youth also attend Trinity College Medical School.
After qualifying, he worked in the Fleet Street Dispensary. For this he received no pay and was obliged to get donations of a guinea each from two people — or else he had to pay this himself.
He gives graphic descriptions of the appalling conditions of the sick poor in Dublin during and after the Famine. Several families were sharing one room and others were confined to basement rooms without light or heating. Typhoid fever and typhus were rife. He watched Daniel O’Connell walking around the streets and listened to the blind beggar Zosimus recite his rhymes.
When he was offered the position of Dispensary Medical Officer in Geashill, Co Offaly, at £80 per annum, he jumped at the offer.
He found the patients in Offaly “cunning” and there was very little private practice in this rural area, where some of his patients were reduced to eating boiled nettles.
After two years, he returned to Dublin, hoping to build up a private practice but found it was hard going. He toyed with the idea of going to England but he had now married and his wife persuaded him to stay in Dublin. Meanwhile, he had received an MD from Trinity College.
His next big break came when he was appointed physician to the Adelaide Hospital. Here he set up a busy outpatient service and was establishing a good practice when he was offered the post of Assistant Master in the Rotunda Hospital. He had to resign his post in the Adelaide and worked in the Rotunda Hospital for the next 20 years until he was appointed Master in 1878.
Despite much opposition from the Governors, he was successful in establishing an outpatient clinic. He found that the hospital was in need of various improvements and had a lot of trouble trying to persuade people to support the hospital financially.
One big problem he had to tackle was the state of nursing in the hospital. Very few of the nurses were trained and some were even illiterate. He had great trouble in getting them to change from their severe black attire to a nurses’ uniform, but eventually succeeded.
Atthill was friendly with many of the greats of 19th Century Irish medicine, including Graves, Stokes, Crampton and Corrigan. The last was so popular that it is said his servant left more money when he died than did Corrigan because of all the bribes from people who wanted to see the doctor, but Atthill was present once when Corrigan dismissed his servant for taking a bribe.
One-guinea fee
A lady from Cork had given the servant one shilling to be first to see Corrigan and when he had completed his examination and requested his fee, the patient told her she had already paid the servant. The fee at that time was one guinea.
Atthill had various ups and downs during his lifetime.
When leaving the mail steamer at Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire), the ship’s Master suddenly moved the ship so the doctor and the gangway dropped into the sea. Despite his heavy clothing, he managed to stay afloat until he was dragged ashore.
He witnessed the enthusiastic reception Queen Victoria received when she visited Dublin in 1849 but her appearance was marred by torrential rain, which left the unpaved streets in a quagmire.
He has the usual grumbles about ungrateful patients and those who choose not to pay — so human nature hasn’t changed much over the years!
Lombe Atthill was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians and President of the Royal Academy of Medicine. In his retirement he spent much of his time yachting.
This book gives a valuable insight into the social and medical conditions during the lifetime of this apparently very pleasant person.
- Recollections of an Irish Doctor by Lombe Atthill. Published by Ballinakella Press.
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