19th Century Healthcare in Niagara Region

A look into Healthcare in the Niagara Region in the long 19th century.

Contents: About the Collection | About the About Page | Tech

About the Collection

This digital exhibition is a brief look into the long history of healthcare in the Niagara Region. The photos were selected as we felt they provided an accurate depiction of what 19th century health care looked like. In the exhibition you will find practical medical photos and some will even make you laugh, check out “A happy combination of family hotel and sanitarium”, as well as some of interesting “diseases” including “sore foot” and “pregnancy.” The humour in the images shows that we can still relate to 19th century living in the 21st century. While we find humour in some of these photos they are still part of important history, and a reminder of how healthcare has evolved and the privileges that come with it. For example, the attire for nurses has changed alot since the 19th century, nurses uniforms were very impractical as they had to wear white dresses while working as medical staff. These uniforms were not practical for nurses, and they represented how women were fighting to find a position within the workplace, as well as fighting against the over sexualization of women and their bodies.

From 1812 onward we covered the transition of healthcare in the Niagara Region starting with the war of 1812 that Isaac Brock is well known from. From records from the War of 1812, we can observe how healthcare looked in the 19th century. For example, the diseases they were battling are much different from today, and even much different from the disease list we have recorded in 1880. Additionally, the methods they used to treat these diseases are much different from how we treat diseases today, in the medical sketches page it mentions a treatment for a cough was a mixture of wine and opium. Furthermore, during the war there was no board of health in the Niagara Region because the order to create one had not been created until 1832, so we can distinguish how the organization of healthcare came together in the region. Prior to the creation of the board of health there may have been a lack of ethical standards within healthcare, and this organization helps ensure a standard practice for patients and workers.

While looking through our exhibition you can uncover how much hospitals have changed throughout and since the 19th century. The presentation and layouts of hospitals were much more similar to that of a house, for example you can see in the St. Catharines General and Marine Hospital as well as the Niagara Falls General Hospital that the hospitals were sided like houses, had peaked roofs with shingles and chimneys, and had much more ornamental details than we see in the 21st century. Moreover, the bedward photograph shows how little privacy was provided for patients, it was a single room with beds lined against the walls; we see no curtains or screens. The lack of privacy would result in a less sterile environment, which would lead to the spread of disease. One thing we’d especially like to note is the photograph of the back of the Niagara Falls General Hospital features an Isolation tent. This is of great significance to us living in 2021 under the circumstance of the COVID-19 pandemic and what isolation looks like to us in healthcare now. Even in 1921 around the time of the Spanish Flu they had already understood how isolation helps prevent the spreading of contagious diseases.

We have also chosen to include a few photos of the Stephenson House and the St. Catherines Well for their contribution to healthcare in the form of mineral springs. In the 19th century in the Niagara Region many people would travel here to reap the benefits of the mineral spring water, as it was believed they had healing properties. While minerals are not popular for medical healing anymore, we still see them being used in spas for relaxation, physical, and mental rest.

After looking through our exhibition we hope to show how differently healthcare looked in the 19th century. We’d like to draw specific attention to the construction of photographs and what it can tell us about Niagara’s past. We must always consider that photographs can only hold a certain amount of “truth” and that each of these photos were carefully considered and constructed which can change their meanings. We must also consider who is left out of the images, who is being disadvantaged, who is advantaged, and how credible the photos are. For example, we no longer have hospital picture days, for what reasons would they drag sick patients outside to take photos, who is really benefiting from these images? Regardless, through course themes and our own research, we have learned a lot about healthcare in the 19th century Niagara Region.

Brock Archives and Special Collections - Gibson Library. Brock University, https://dr.library.brocku.ca/handle/10464/5. Accessed 25 Nov. 2021.

Niagara Public Falls (Ontario) Public Library. https://my.nflibrary.ca/. Accessed 25 Nov. 2021.

Technical Credits - CollectionBuilder

This digital collection is built with CollectionBuilder, an open source tool for creating digital collection and exhibit websites that is developed by faculty librarians at the University of Idaho Library following the Lib-STATIC methodology.

This site is built using CollectionBuilder-gh which utilizes the static website generator Jekyll and GitHub Pages to build and host digital collections and exhibits.

More Information Available

Technical Specifications
IMLS Support