Pettifogging
Restrictions open Museum of Medicine
By Kent Barker
I stumbled across
a most extraordinary collection the other day.
It started while rifling through some folders of old press cuttings
about my village. I have sort of
volunteered to produce a monthly page from these archives for our Benenden
Magazine. What, I wondered, was going on
a hundred years ago? For one thing they
were in the middle of the “Great War”.
Well, that’s how it was known at the time and, indeed, up until the late
1930s when the prospect of another ‘great’ war was looming. But the use of the adjective is instructive
because it seems it didn’t just refer to the scale of the conflict, but also to
its moral righteousness. To quote
historian Seán Lang: “The Allies believed they were fighting against an evil
militarism that had taken hold in Germany. 'Great War' carried echoes of
Armageddon, the biblical Great Battle of Good and Evil to be fought at the end
of Time.” Well, whatever. But there’s
little doubt that it had a massive effect on the lives of the people round here.
Quite apart from those who were killed or wounded, many locals, usually women,
were volunteering for the VAD - Voluntary Aid Detachment - a branch of the Red
Cross providing nursing services at field hospitals here and abroad.
Anyway, the press
cutting was a letter to the editor of the local paper. Well, when I say letter, it was really more
of a rant about another letter writer: “His
remarks …
savour of a mean pettifogging and dog-in-the-manger spirit … simply exposing
deplorable ignorance … must have forgotten and forsaken his patriotism.”
And what were the two correspondents so exercised about – it was DORA.
No, not some local lass they were competing over, but the Defence of the Realm
Act, passed in 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war, containing some
extraordinary provisions. These included cutting pub-opening hours, watering
down beer and prohibiting the buying of rounds. Other precautions might seem more
prudent, such as outlawing talk of naval or military matters in public places, the
use of invisible ink when writing abroad, or buying binoculars. But by far the
most contentious, it seems, was the restriction preventing any bright light
from being seen outside. This was clearly the forerunner of the blackout in
WW2.
It would appear that the first letter writer was complaining about
light being emitted from the Benenden Sanatorium – a TB hospital to the north
of our village which had been commandeered for troops returning from the front
with consumption. Sadly we don’t know exactly
what he said, but ‘A Patient’ at the hospital was severely unimpressed: “Anyone who may visit the sanatorium after
dark will only see the place plunged in perennial darkness but for a glimmer of
light here and there in the cubicles of bed-ridden patients…” he responds. “If even the modicum of light which the
Defence of the Real Act permits be denied to the institution, a patient having
a sudden hemorrhage will be unattended with perhaps fatal result … to attempt
to deny those who have gone out, and fought, and contracted a serious disease,
the little privilege the lighting regulations permit, he must have forsaken his
patriotism.”
So I called the Sanatorium, now
known as The Benenden Hospital, and asked if they had any photographs from a
hundred years ago. Yes, came the reply,
albums full of them. Come along to the
museum and have a look. A Museum? Here
in our midst? How exciting. Actually I
anticipated just a few dog-eared pictures and a couple of bits of redundant
equipment - so what a delight when the door was unlocked and I was ushered in. Three large rooms were filled with
imaginatively mounted displays charting the progress of not just the Sanatorium
itself, but the history of medicine throughout the past century. It really was a little gem. Sadly the curator behind the project had
retired and moved away so they are now looking for a new archivist. In the meantime no one quite knows what
anything is or where it’s kept. I did manage to find a photograph of the staff
at the Sanatorium during WW1 - Matrons with starched white uniforms and medical
staff in dark suits and Eaton collars.
But behind them stood three rows of young men more informally
attired. Could these have been ambulant soldier-patients
in civvies? Could one even have been our epistolarian?
I
imagined him fulminating at the other privations caused by DORA. What!!! Beer watered down? Pubs closing
early, and the good people of Benenden prohibited from buying a round? Even for
returning servicemen. And it’s for this
we’ve served King and Country and survived Armageddon. It’s those politico
chappies up in London who display the real mean,
pettifogging and dog-in-the-manger spirit!
ends
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