Dora Colebrook was born in 1884 in Guildford, Surrey and the family moved to Bournemouth when her father died in 1896. Dora studied at the Royal Free Hospital in London, obtaining her MB in 1915 and then a MD from the University of London in 1919. She then moved to Jesse's Hospital in Sheffield as …
International Women’s Day 2018
Today is International Women's Day and following an article in the paper about some of Cambridge’s leading ladies in health care, I began to think about some of the leading ladies of the past, and one in particular, Alice Fisher. Alice was a prodigy of Florence Nightingale and an early pioneer in nursing training. Alice …
Dr Alice Robson
Alice Robson was born Alice Lilian Louise Cumming in 1870, in Houston, Renfew, her father was a General Practitioner. Alice achieved her M.B and C.M Glasgow in 1894 and received her Doctor of Public Health in Cambridge in 1899. Alice married Henry Cumming Robson, in 1901, a mathematician and fellow of Sidney Sussex College in …
Dr Dorothy Hare, CBE, MD, DPH
On the eve of the World War One, it was almost 40 years since women had become eligible to study and practise medicine, but women were still unable to work in most general hospitals. Consequently, their vocation was restricted to general practice and those hospitals founded by women to treat women and children. The war …
International Women’s Day
This Thursday 8th March is International Women's Day and over the next few days I will be posting blogs written by Kate Dove. Kate has just completed her MA History at the Open University. As part of the research for her dissertation, The Impact of the First World War on women's Employment: What were the changes in …
Renal Transplant and Dialysis Unit
The Annual Report of 1965-1966 reported that work had commenced on the establishment of a Renal Transplant and Dialysis Unit at Douglas House under the direction of Professor Roy Calne, who was appointed to the Chair of Surgery in October 1965. ‘The treatment now available in this unit has not previously been provided in Cambridge …
W. Graham Cannon (1925-2018)
Today I attended the service of thanksgiving for the life of Mr Cannon, who died earlier this month at the age of 92. He was a remarkable gentleman and had a lifelong interest in history and especially the history of Addenbrooke's. He co-authored the 'History of Addenbrooke's,' and was one of the instigators in establishing the …
Electric light
In the last few years of the nineteenth century the hospital was still mainly lit by gas-lit. This picture of a theatre at about this time clearly shows at gas light, which must have caused problem with the use of a anaesthesia in operations. The Cambridge Electric Supply Company, whose manager was a member of …
Brief History of Addenbrooke’s Hospital and its connection with the University Clinical School
Dr John Addenbrooke left in his will of 1720 about £4,500 to build and fit up a building for a hospital in Cambridge. The hospital erected on Trumpington Street; was one of the first voluntary hospitals for the poor. It opened on 13th October 1766 with just 20 beds in two wards. To attend the …
More heating problems
A few weeks ago I wrote about the problem of heating the wards at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and a letter from some of the medical staff saying that heating the wards with radiators and hot water pipes would prove ‘prejudicial to the health and convalescence of the patients and to …
