Ben Oates
Question 2
In the Blists Hill open air museum I looked at reconstructions of 19th century shops and houses. In this question I am going to see how accurate these reconstructions are.
There were many reconstructed buildings at the Blists Hill, one of them was the Doctors house. It did look and old building and was quite small, this is because a hundred years or so ago people were smaller than they are now. You could see from the décor of the house that doctors had more money in them days than most other people. This building however was not an original Doctors house, it has been adapted and brought in from a country estate but has been presented as a doctors surgery and waiting room. Although to give it that authentic feel the instruments that a doctor would use are all original as is the kitchen range and furniture, it has just been brought in from other places. It looked the nicest building at Blists Hill and was out of the way. If you compare it to the Squatters cottage there is quite a dramatic difference. In the doctors cottage as you walked in you were in the living room, which also acted as a waiting room, in this room there was a woman in 19th century dress. She was the doctors wife and could answer many of our questions so she knew what the role of the doctor was in them days. This lady informed us on the things that did not directly include medical practice. She told us the prices of a doctor which was sixpence although if someone could not afford a doctor they would pay in kindness by either working for the doctor until the debt is eradicated or give the doctor things they produced. A farmer would give things such as potatoes and cabbages whilst a iron monger might help to fix a broken part of a fence or the kitchen range. The prices may be incorrect as in source A it tells us that for a regular patient to see the doctor it would cost 2s6d and for a new patient it would cost 10s0d so either the lady that informed us of the prices are wrong or different doctors had different asking prices. In the surgery there was a talk from a doctor supposedly from the 19th century he informed us on medical issues. He had many bottles in the surgery and these were for making medicines, it looked like a chemists a bit in the surgery because of all the bottles. He told us that the green bottles were ointments and not to be taken orally, this shows that although the doctors did not have much medical know how, we know this as the doctor told us that they did not sterilise instruments, they were organised in what they done. I think that although the Doctors House was once a country cottage in a different area it is quite a good source as it does use original objects and has been adapted to look and feel like a surgery. Also the people in the house were very well informed and seemed to know what they were talking about when it came to a doctors life in the 19th century.
