{"title":"'A Voice from the Workhouse': contesting medical care in Victorian New Poor Law workhouses.","authors":"Alistair Ritch","doi":"10.1017/mdh.2026.10092","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Recent years have seen a renewed emphasis on the everyday experiences of paupers, expressed through their letters of application for relief and complaints with regard to their indoor treatment. This article uses a variety of poor law sources to analyse the agency of sick workhouse inmates in Birmingham Parish and Wolverhampton Union after the new poor law. It analyses their complaints about their medical care from correspondence to newspapers, the central authority and boards of guardians, and their moves to seek medical care in workhouses of their choosing. Despite the disadvantages they faced within the medical consultation, they were prepared to make serious allegations over the medical care they received and to pursue these in the presence of medical and nursing staff. Their complaints were not infrequently upheld by guardians and could at times result in the medical officer's dismissal or forced resignation.</p>","PeriodicalId":18275,"journal":{"name":"Medical History","volume":" ","pages":"1-17"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2026-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Medical History","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/mdh.2026.10092","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"HEALTH CARE SCIENCES & SERVICES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Recent years have seen a renewed emphasis on the everyday experiences of paupers, expressed through their letters of application for relief and complaints with regard to their indoor treatment. This article uses a variety of poor law sources to analyse the agency of sick workhouse inmates in Birmingham Parish and Wolverhampton Union after the new poor law. It analyses their complaints about their medical care from correspondence to newspapers, the central authority and boards of guardians, and their moves to seek medical care in workhouses of their choosing. Despite the disadvantages they faced within the medical consultation, they were prepared to make serious allegations over the medical care they received and to pursue these in the presence of medical and nursing staff. Their complaints were not infrequently upheld by guardians and could at times result in the medical officer's dismissal or forced resignation.
期刊介绍：
Medical History is a refereed journal devoted to all aspects of the history of medicine and health, with the goal of broadening and deepening the understanding of the field, in the widest sense, by historical studies of the highest quality. It is also the journal of the European Association for the History of Medicine and Health. The membership of the Editorial Board, which includes senior members of the EAHMH, reflects the commitment to the finest international standards in refereeing of submitted papers and the reviewing of books. The journal publishes in English, but welcomes submissions from scholars for whom English is not a first language; language and copy-editing assistance will be provided wherever possible.
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