Doctors, Disease and Death. The Story of Public Health in Hay on Wye

This is the story of the state of the health of inhabitants of Hay on Wye, a small rural town in the Welsh Marche. Life was hard but did it really need the 50 or so doctors who worked there over the last 200 years. Was it a hotbed of disease, a famous centre for healing, or just full of hypochondriacs? Charles Dickens would have us believe that life expectancy was short in Victorian times, with the spectre of disease, ill-health, infirmity and death ever present. Is this right? Read about the medieval folklore and traditional healing, the diseases inhabitants were exposed to, the healthcare they received, and the evolution of medical practice from the apothecaries to pharmacists and the early surgeons and doctors. What was the range of the doctors work, and how did the towns counsellors try to look after the health of its inhabitants? Here are its workhouse, isolation hospital, almshouses, surgeries, nurses, dentists and chemists. The doctors are listed, together with stories around their medical practice and incidents in which their services were required, a cross section of life in a typical market town.