Correspondence of St Thomas's Hospital relating to cholera

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0100 TH/CLR1
Held at	: King's College London College Archives   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://www.kcl.ac.uk/library/archivespec/ ›
Full title	: Correspondence of St Thomas's Hospital relating to cholera
Date(s)	: 1831, 1835
Level of description	: Sub-fonds of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School records View parent record
Extent	: 1 volume containing 8 letters
Name of creator(s)	: St Thomas's Hospital

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Cholera was endemic in London during the nineteenth century, and epidemics were a regular feature of life. The first outbreak of Asiatic cholera in Britain was at Sunderland on the Durham coast during the Autumn of 1831. From there the disease made its way northward into Scotland and southward toward London, claiming 52,000 lives.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence between physicians of St Thomas's Hospital and the City of London Board of Health, [Court of Common Council], Guildhall, 1831, concerning the hospital's potential accommodation for patients in the event of an outbreak of cholera in London, with replies to the Secretary of St Thomas's from the physicians Henry Shuckburgh Roots, Robert Williams, Henry Burton and John Elliotson expressing their opinions on how patients should be managed. Also contains letter from Robert Williams concerning cases of 'ring worm', 1835; and printed copies of article 'The Cholera scare of 1831' from St Thomas's Hospital Gazette, Vol 44 No 3, June 1946

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The letters are arranged chronologically.

Conditions governing access:

Open, subject to signature of reader's undertaking form.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Director of Archive and Corporate Record Services.

Finding aids:

Detailed catalogue

Archival Information

Archival history:

The letters were found in about 1946 after tidying up blitz damage to St Thomas's Hospital.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Transferred from St Thomas's Hospital Medical School Library in 2002.

Allied Materials

Related material:

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Sources: Catalogue of the Printed Books and Manuscripts in the Library of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School (1491-1900) D T Bird (London, 1984); Old Ref. Codes M15, 20, 50, 117, 147, 151
The Victorian Web: http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/health/health10.html. Compiled by Julie Tancell as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
May 2002. Revised Jun 2004