Infections & Disease - Leeds 1950s

Johnny39 · Post by **Johnny39** » Thu 04 Oct, 2012 4:00 pm

Jogon wrote: Think one is more convenient for the graveyard. And Asda.I knew it as Fever Hozzy I'twer all fields when I wer' a lad Jogon:-)

blackprince · Post by **blackprince** » Thu 04 Oct, 2012 9:09 pm

In the 50's nobody seemed to worry about catching the normal childhood illnesses measles, chicken pox , mumps etc and just accepted it was a normal part of growing up.Polio and TB were the serious illnesses parents worried about.I remember my whole class from Brownhill junior school being walked up to a clinic on Harehills lane to have the first ever polio vaccination. From memory this was about 1956 or 57 not long after the Salk vaccine became available. ( it was licensed for use in the US in 1955). In the early 60's there was mass innoculation of 13/14 year olds with the BCG vaccine against TB in Leeds schools. They used a skin sensitivity test to check whether you needed the innoculation or not. Adding to the list Tonsillitis - many kids in the 50's had their tonsils removed.Bronchitis - probably worse before the introduction of the clean air act in the 1960's.Influenza - there was an outbreak of "asian flu", which nowadays we would probably call a pandemic, in 1957/58. Leeds primary school kids at the time used to joke " I opened the window and influenza". Also about that time I remember first seeing " Coughs and sneezes spread diseases " public information ads on TV & Cinema.

compton · Post by **compton** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 12:08 am

blackprince wrote: In the 50's nobody seemed to worry about catching the normal childhood illnesses measles, chicken pox , mumps etc and just accepted it was a normal part of growing up.Polio and TB were the serious illnesses parents worried about.I remember my whole class from Brownhill junior school being walked up to a clinic on Harehills lane to have the first ever polio vaccination. From memory this was about 1956 or 57 not long after the Salk vaccine became available. ( it was licensed for use in the US in 1955). In the early 60's there was mass innoculation of 13/14 year olds with the BCG vaccine against TB in Leeds schools. They used a skin sensitivity test to check whether you needed the innoculation or not. Adding to the list Tonsillitis - many kids in the 50's had their tonsils removed.Bronchitis - probably worse before the introduction of the clean air act in the 1960's.Influenza - there was an outbreak of "asian flu", which nowadays we would probably call a pandemic, in 1957/58. Leeds primary school kids at the time used to joke " I opened the window and influenza". Also about that time I remember first seeing " Coughs and sneezes spread diseases " public information ads on TV & Cinema. Hi Black Prince, do you remember I think Mr. Barford announcing to the school assembly in the mid 50s that a pupil had died of diptheria. Regarding asian flu, I remember having that, on one day of the illness I had total double vision, couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, just groaned turned over and went back to sleep. I think the greatest relief in the 50s was the discovery of the Salk vaccine, the horrible threat of polio hovered over all of us.

Johnny39 · Post by **Johnny39** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 12:49 am

Back in those far off days of the 40's/50's providing your house was clean they would remove tonsils using the dining-room table as the operating table, Sounds incredible in this day and age but they brought us up tough back then. I kid you not.

blackprince · Post by **blackprince** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 1:27 am

Hi Black Prince, do you remember I think Mr. Barford announcing to the school assembly in the mid 50s that a pupil had died of diptheria. Regarding asian flu, I remember having that, on one day of the illness I had total double vision, couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, just groaned turned over and went back to sleep. I think the greatest relief in the 50s was the discovery of the Salk vaccine, the horrible threat of polio hovered over all of us. Hi Compton,Sorry I don't recall a Brownhill pupil dying of diptheria.I think being exposed to asian flu as children 1950's has given our generation a degree of immunity against later flu pandemics so maybe the suffering was worth it!Yes the Salk vaccine was a fantastic medical breakthrough. My cousin had polio in the 50's and every child my age had seen newsreel of wards full of children in "iron lungs". There's no doubt 1950's living conditions contributed to our health in good and bad ways. Very few children had asthma back then compared with the levels in children today and of course we got plenty of fresh air and exercise and a healthier diet ( thanks to sweet rationing until 1953 and the lack of processed foods) so childhood obesity was rare.

James · Post by **James** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 8:19 am

Johnny39 wrote: Back in those far off days of the 40's/50's providing your house was clean they would remove tonsils using the dining-room table as the operating table, Sounds incredible in this day and age but they brought us up tough back then. I kid you not. I remember waiting in a queue to have my tonsils out at Leeds Dispensary. Four or five kids were in front of me as we sat in a room next to the operating theatre, and I could hear the screams of one or two as they woke out of the anaesthetic.They put me to sleep by holding a piece of cotton wool over my face and sprinkling it with ether - which is supposed to be safer than chloroform. It was like being suffocated and not an experience I'd care to repeat. I was 9 years old at the time.

BLAKEY · Post by **BLAKEY** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 9:55 am

I had my tonsils out at Ilkley Coronation Hospital, aged five, in 1941.The thing I remember most was not the immediate aftermath of the procedure, but the crisis that my grey and red knitted rabbit Wilfred had been left in the operating theatre to who knows what awful fate. Poor old Dad was sent back pronto and luckily returned, breathless up the steep West View, with a totally unconcerned Bunny On the subject of Tuberculosis ("consumption" in former days) Middleton Sanatorium at Ilkley was still treating in patients with the disease well into the 1950s. There must have been an improvement around 1960 because the place then became a general geriatric establishment and was renamed "Middleton Hospital." Ledgard's ran a service there on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays (the only normal visiting afternoons) and around those later days the word "Sanatorium" was deleted from the older destination blinds - leaving just "Middleton" - and newer editions were manufactured showing "Middleton Hospital."

book · Post by **book** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 10:43 am

I remember people that wouldn't go to work having Idleitis, in curable I think.

simong · Post by **simong** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 10:57 am

Tuberculosis was effectively wiped out in the early 60s because of the successful use of vaccination against it. However, drug-resistant strains appeared in the 90s and it's now the second most common disease in the world.A similar thing is happening with whooping cough now. I literally caught it in a supermarket earlier this year and it still hasn't cleared up completely six months later. Now the NHS are offering whooping cough vaccine to pregnant women presumably as the virus has taken the same course.

carith · Post by **carith** » Fri 05 Oct, 2012 5:20 pm

One illness that did the rounds regularly was Dysentery.