Smallpox was responsible at this time for 1 death in 12, and for one quarter of those suffering from blindness. The Hospital initiated a campaign to promote Jennerian vaccination against the disease.

Major surgical procedures remained few but were often reported in the local newspaper, such as the removal of a kidney stone in this quote from the Royal Cornwall Gazette, 22 December 1827.
The type of cases being treated at the hospital at this time were fevers, ulcers, chest infections, rheumatism, contusions, fractures, abscesses, tumours, dislocations, colic, haemorrhages, palsies, cancers and wounds of various types.

It is likely that a higher proportion of admissions were due to injury or accident in the mines.

“The operation of Lithotomy (removal of a stone from the bladder) was again performed at the Cornwall Infirmary on Friday 12th instant, upon a poor man named William Uren. The stone extracted weighed 5ozs 3 drams and its largest circumference measured 7 inches and a quarter. The patient is doing very well.”

A Parish domiciliary medical service was introduced following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 and was available to paupers until 1948. The medical officer, paid by the Truro Union, was employed to:

“attend all paupers including all midwifery cases, accidents, vaccination, and all other medical and surgical cases whatsoever and to provide trusses, bandages etc for the sum of £25 per annum”.

The Truro Dispensary was a charity set up in 1842. Subscribers could nominate poor ‘worthy’ cases for medical and surgical care and free medicines. It was situated in Union Place. The premises were sold in 1934 and patients continued to be treated at the surgery of Dr Malony at 18 Lemon Street until the introduction of the National Health Service in 1948.

"Worthy cases" could get free medicines and surgical care.Content coming soon

In 1868 a West wing extension and new operating room were built at a cost of £123 18s 0d. In 1869 healthcare improved further when a nursing system for nurse training modelled on the Nightingale School was introduced. In 1889 the Ophthalmology department opened, followed by a Dentistry department in 1894.

The first private patient was admitted in 1901. In 1907 Mr G Petherick of St Austell presented hospital with new x-ray plant but as there was no electricity to run it, he had that installed too!

In 1913 the first female house surgeon was appointed – Dr Florence Inglis.

Two 500 kg bombs were dropped over Truro, one virtually demolished the south wing of the hospital. A ward sister, a nurse and 3 visiting relatives were killed.

“They bombed that place (City Hospital) in about 1942 I think and I know there was one nurse killed.”

Click on the icon below to hear Kingsley Wright describe the infirmary bombing.

The NHS was introduced in 1948, and in 1968 HRH Princess Alexandra officially opened the new hospital at Treliske.

City Hospital began to transfer its services to Treliske in 1992, and it finally closed in 1999.

The site of the Royal Cornwall Infirmary is given a new purpose, with the opening of Truro Health Park (primary health care services for the people of Truro).

In 1842, a report on the sanitary conditions of Truro by Edwin Chadwick stated that although there were some public sewers in the town which discharged themselves into the river, others stopped short and opened up to the surface, frequently in streets and lanes.

Many of the smaller sewers were too narrow to be effective and were not better than covered drains, but the main problem was that many of the courts and lanes adjoining the main streets had no communicating drains. Chadwick states: In 1853 there were still houses in “respectable” parts of the city where the inhabitants were dependent on dry closets for sanitation but the cholera epidemic of that year finally forced the Sanitary Committee to ensure that all private drains were connected with the main sewer where they existed.

By the end of 1853, five miles of drainage existed within the town and, although there was a further outbreak of cholera in 1866, it never again reached the proportions of former years.

“The perfect immunity from deaths by febrile and acute diseases, enjoyed by Lemon street during the long period of three years and a half, is a strong testimony to the value of the breadth of its roadway, the openness of its site, and the judicious construction of the houses; for it has to contend with a great deficiency of sewerage.”

In 1840 Dr Charles Barham, a Truro physician, reported that the areas of Truro with the highest death rate were in the over-crowded areas of Kenwyn street, Pydar Street with its adjacent courts and the St Clements Street area.

Between 1837 and 1840 death rates were much higher within the working classes where living conditions were poor. Their average age of death was 29 in contrast to that of tradespeople which was over 34 and of the professional people and gentry which was over 40.

It was reported that Coome’s Lane, Tippet’s Backlet and Mill Lane had been notorious for fevers ‘often of a malignant and infectious kind’ but due to the removal of old houses, and better supplies of running water, had become amongst the healthiest in the town. With their better constructed houses in open rows, Boscawen and Paul’s Rows and St Clements Terrace were much improved.

Click on the icon below to hear Denis Row describe the earth closet.