I remember a small hacksaw.
The Maitland Hospital has been on its current site for over 170 years. Some items that provide glimpses into the history and experiences of and in the hospital have survived. These are being accessioned into the Maitland Hospital Collection. They are, however, just a small selection.
There are also mentions, memories and sometimes images of items that tell stories about the hospital but that, over the years, have disappeared.
Here are some of the stories of the items that are no longer in the collection.
amputation set
Holly McNamee and her brother, Jim, recall donating an amputation set along with a number of old medical books to the Maitland Hospital in 1999. They were items that came from the line of doctors in her family – Drs Power, Hollywood and McNamee. Holly remembers:
… the amputation set … was in a wooden case with blue velvet lining and a brass clip. There was a knife missing from the set as our family used it as a carving knife!!! I am remembering a small hacksaw, and Jim thinks there may have been a tourniquet in there also.
The amputation set is a reminder of the early days of surgery. To date, it has not yet been located. Images from sets held in museums provide a sense of what it might be like.
patients’ register 1856-1908
In the mid-1920s H.I. Mannall, the Maitland Hospital Secretary, came across an early patients’ register. The find was reported in the local newspapers. As the register is apparently now lost to the hospital, it is the newspaper articles that provide some sense of the type of details it documented. The Newcastle Sun (23 July 1925), for example, summarised some of the contents, noting:
patients ‘hailed from all corners of the state’
patients’ occupations included ‘… shepherds, timber-getters, convicts from the gaol, drovers … vagrants, hog-house builders, lawyers and farmers’ wives..’
the first entry is ‘William Linigan (56) … shepherd… Tamworth; treated for St Vitus Dance; sent to Sydney asylum’
The Maitland Mercury (1 April 1925) mixed details about the register or, as the paper described it, the ‘old record book’ with some background on the hospital.
Maitland Mercury, 1 April 1925.
mortuary slab
In 2006 artist Fiona Davies worked with old items from the Maitland Hospital to create an installation in the foyer space between the 1849 and 1905 buildings. Among the items she found was a mortuary slab. She recreated the mortuary slab as a rice mould and placed it on the frame of an old hospital bed. Davies was exploring ‘the interactions between the ideas of the public, medical authority and how that space becomes familiar and almost domestic.’
Fiona Davies has shared photographs of the mortuary slab on the verandah of the former nurses’ isolation cottage at the hospital, her work in progress and the final artwork.
A report in the Newcastle Post on 22 January 1997 notes that ‘a polished concrete mortuary slab from the … closed Gresford Hospital’ was among items collected with a view to creating a medical museum. The slab is no longer in the hospital.
The nature and function of the mortuary slab is indicated by a mortuary table from Sydney’s Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.
A further part of Fiona Davies’ installation was in the foyer of the hospital. Her work, entitled Isolation, was part of Building Sites Taking Shape - a public art project commissioned by Maitland Regional Art Gallery as part of its City of the Arts program.