Municipal Bacteriology in Camberwell
The London Government Act of 1899 merged a number of the vestries and districts to 29 metropolitan boroughs in London. Camberwell, based on the 1901 census had a population of 259339.
Francis Joseph Stevens was the second Medical Officer for Health (MOH) for Camberwell, succeeding J S Bristowe F.R.S. in 1893. Stevens initiated the bacteriological examination of diphtheria by requesting funding from the local Sanitary Committee in 1897. Having obtained approval in 1898 the bacteriological work was outsourced to Edward Collins Bousfield (1855-1921) who was appointed the borough bacteriologist in 1898 and performed the work in his own laboratory, the Camberwell Research Laboratory. Medically qualified at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and having worked in the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories (who in 1894 were the first British commercial manufacturer of diphtheria antitoxin) Bousfield had the appropriate skills and laboratory facilities at Number 363, Old Kent Road (claimed to have started operating in 1891). It would seem that Bousfield acquired bacteriological skills having been a pupil of Edward Emmanuel Klein, who was one the first bacteriologists in the England, working at Barts. Bousfield dedicates his book on Photo-micrography to Klein. In addition to medical qualifications Bousfield held the Diploma in Public Health (DPH) which enabled him to deputise for Stevens as MOH. The bacteriological work ’’…effectively commenced on January 1st, 1899’’ and the numbers of samples examined in the early years are given in Table 1. Typically for all municipal bacteriology, they are dominated by throat swabs for diagnosis of the diphtheria bacillus, with fewer samples for diagnosis of enteric fever (Widal test) and sputa for tubercle. For example, of the 98 samples sent in the last three months of 1900 78 were throat swabs, of which 26 yielded the organism, 2 were doubtful and 50 negative. By May 1901 Bousfield had obtained a salary contribution for a Boy Assistant ‘’…in the purely mechanical part of the work’’ at 7s. 6d per week (Minutes of Proceedings, Borough of Camberwell, 1901. p602.) Clearly emphasising that the important medical work was not being left to unqualified personnel.
In appointing Bousfield, Stevens placed Camberwell as the first London borough to hire their own bacteriologist. Stevens initially anticipated that offering bacteriological diagnosis would diminish the notifications of diphtheria in the borough since incorrect diagnoses in which children were not infected could be excluded from the notifications. In fact, the opposite happened. The finding of the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus in children without obvious symptoms and signs meant that the notifications increased. Stevens retired in March 1922 after 29 years’ service but remained as a consulting MOH after Howell Wood Barnes took over as MOH.
The lease expired on the Bousfield’s laboratory in 1910 and he relocated to new premises in number 6 DeCrispigny Park, Denmark Hill in 1911. Bousfield’s laboratory continued to perform the bacteriological work for the borough up until Bousfield’s death in 1921. The work was then sent to the Bacteriological department at Kings College Hospital, Denmark Hill for a few years before Bousfield’s son, Guy (1893-1974) took over the work from 1924 whilst Pathologist at St Giles Hospital, Brunswick Square, Camberwell. The bacteriological work for the Borough was carried out mostly in the bacteriological department of the hospital however specimens that needed attention at the weekends were analysed at Bousfield’s private laboratory. St Giles’ Hospital was bombed during world war two and in the 1930s the bacteriological work for Camberwell was carried out entirely by Bousfield’s private lab by now at 134 Denmark Hill, SE5.
This continued until in 1948 the laboratory came under the control of the Medical Research Council (itself part of the Ministry of Health) which itself became the Public Health Laboratory Service. Bousfield remained in charge of the laboratory until it closed in 1953.
References:
Bacteriological Diagnosis (1898) The Lancet, Dec 10, p1563
Bousfield, E.C. (1892) Guide to the Science Of Photo-Micrography
Obituary E C Collins (1921) BMJ i p148
Obituary G W Bousfield (1974) BMJ Sept p691
Wellcome Pulse. https://wellcomelibrary.org/moh/.