Legionnaires’ disease historically was first associated with travel. However, an outbreak can occur in your home town (as in Edinburgh right now) or even in a hospital setting.

This term “legionnaires’ disease” was first used in 1977 following an outbreak of pneumonia in the USA the previous year where 234 people were affected and 34 died.

This was not a usual type of pneumonia and carried with it a high mortality. Many of these people, when diagnosed, were scattered throughout different states. However after some time, it became apparent that there was a common factor – each patient had attended a convention of the American Legion in Philadelphia in July 1976 and had stayed in the same hotel.

Although first identified in the USA in the 1976-77, it existed unrecognised prior to this. In 2007 the Wellcome Trust funded some research to investigate the history of legionnaire’s disease in the UK.

A summary is here:

FEATURE : A HISTORY OF LEGIONNAIRES DISEASE IN THE UK

COUNTRY : UK

Benidorm
The advent of cheaper flights and package tours during the 1970s made it possible for more Britons to holiday abroad. One of the most popular destinations was Spain, where new hotels were springing up. In July 1973, four tourists who stayed at the Rio Park Hotel in Benidorm contracted a mysterious form of pneumonia and died. “There was an Agatha Christie-like investigation: all the drinks and food at the hotel were tested for toxins but no one could find the cause,” says Professor Macfarlane.

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One of the dubious “privileges” of being a junior hospital doctor a few decades ago was that you experienced many of the symptoms and signs that go along with sleep deprivation. Indeed being on call from a Friday morning to a Monday evening with only the occasional odd hour or so of sleep grabbed between emergencies was not all that uncommon. Shift work for doctors did not exist then – that would have been a real luxury during these years.

Possibly as a consequence of experiencing total exhaustion during that time, getting enough sleep to function properly has always been very important to me.

Most of us, including myself are of the view that 8 hours unbroken sleep a night is what is required to refresh and enable you to function optimally the next day.

However, there was an article on the BBC website yesterday that I found fascinating and it suggests that perhaps we should be sleeping in two chunks of four hours with a period of being awake for one to two hours in between.

THE MYTH OF THE EIGHT HOUR SLEEP

COUNTRY : UK

“In the early 1990s, psychiatrist Thomas Wehr conducted an experiment in which a group of people were plunged into darkness for 14 hours every day for a month.
It took some time for their sleep to regulate but by the fourth week the subjects had settled into a very distinct sleeping pattern. They slept first for four hours, then woke for one or two hours before falling into a second four-hour sleep.
Though sleep scientists were impressed by the study, among the general public the idea that we must sleep for eight consecutive hours persists.”

History supports this. Apparently, up to the late seventeenth century, normal sleep was considered divided into “first sleep” and “second sleep.” This concept gradually disappeared and by the 20th century it seems to have been forgotten about.

Roger Ekirch is a historian and has researched the phenomenon of first and second sleep.

“During this waking period people were quite active. They often got up, went to the toilet or smoked tobacco and some even visited neighbours. Most people stayed in bed, read, wrote and often prayed. Countless prayer manuals from the late 15th Century offered special prayers for the hours in between sleeps.”

Roger Ekirch has written a couple of books about this:

ROGER EKIRCH

COUNTRY : USA

It is fascinating stuff, but will it have any implications for insomniacs? Perhaps it is the normal work patterns imposed on us nowadays by society that turns some people who cannot adapt to an uninterrupted sleeping pattern into insomniacs. Who knows?

Although not an insomniac myself, I’m temped to buy the book and after reading it hand it on a friend who has been bedevilled with insomnia all her life.

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On 5 July 1948, the National Health Service (NHS) was launched in the UK and was considered to be a “jewel in the crown” destined to look after the health of the nation from cradle to grave, funded by taxation and free at the point of use.

It has largely lived up to its promise that individuals in the UK never have any financial concerns or insurance claims and their associated “small print” and documentation to worry about when they are ill. In recent years, however, there seem to be changes afoot and many are suspicious that creeping privatisation of the NHS has been the agenda of successive governments.

The BBC hold archives of documents, images and broadcasts outlining the birth and subsequent development of this institution which, for all its faults, is beloved by most of the British people.

You can listen to Sir William Beveridge in 1942 outlining his proposals for the new welfare state, a broadcast in 1943 of two doctors debating the pros and cons of the proposed NHS,a party political broadcast in 1948 by Dr Edith Summerskill outlining the advantages of the new NHS, and in the same year the service explained by the then Prime Minister Clement Attlee as well as a 1949 broadcast by Aneurin Bevin on the service one year after its introduction.

HISTORY OF THE NHS BBC ARCHIVE

COUNTRY : UK

There is also a comprehensive website by Goeffrey Rivett where he discusses the ups and downs of the NHS since its inception until the present day.

NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE HISTORY

COUNTRY : UK

While at the Department of Health he wrote his first book, The Development of the London Hospital System 1823-1982, (King’s Fund 1986) on the evolution and systematisation of the hospital service in London, and in retirement he returned to contemporary medical history writing From Cradle to Grave: fifty years of the NHS, published by the King’s Fund in 1998. This history combines:

The clinical developments in the major specialties since 1948

The concurrent changes in primary health care and the hospital service

The political and financial background

This book, with a foreword by the Prime Minister, was published at the beginning of 1998, the 50th anniversary year of the NHS. It was well reviewed and there were substantial sales. As the NHS continues to change, the material is kept up to date on Internet. Geoffrey Rivett is committed to the idea of an effective health care system, sees much that is good in the NHS, but is prepared to criticise when necessary. In 2004 he was elected as a governor of the Homerton University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust becoming vice-chair of the governors in 2007. In the anniversary year he wrote extensively on the service and has contributed to radio and TV programmes for example BBC Two and the World Service. In 2009 was invited to give the David Fine Distinguished Lecture at the University of Southern Mississippi. and has recently spoken at Gresham College and the Bishopsgate Institute.

He is a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, a member of the RSM, and a liveryman of the Apothecaries and Barbers. His interests include photography (he is an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society) and web-authoring. He lives in the Barbican in central London.”

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Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, in association with University College London, is considered to be the largest centre for research and postgraduate teaching in paediatrics in Europe.

It has interesting links to Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up. In 1929, J M Barrie, the author of this children’s book and play donated the copyright to Great Ormond Street on condition that the amount the income obtained from this source was not to be disclosed.

This has resulted in significant income to the hospital as a result of numerous plays and publications over the years. The copyright expired in 1987, however, the UK government granted the hospital to collect royalties indefinitely. This was extended by a European directive.

However, since then there has been legal disputes originating in the USA.

There is a hospital museum which houses editions of Peter Pan from all over the world and in many languages. The museum covers many aspects of the history of the hospital, however it is only open by appointment.

LONDON MUSEUMS OF HEALTH AND MEDICINE

The hospital itself was founded in 1852 and was the first of its kind in the English speaking world in that it had inpatient beds for children only. It started off with only 10 beds but rapidly grew because of its patronage. Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens both supported the hospital then know as “The Hospital for Sick Children”

Great Ormond Street still actively seeks donations from the public.

For example, in 2008 it received £433,250 from the auction of Charles Dickens’ desk and chair.

Recently Marks and Spencer were selling apples embossed with the Great Ormond Street Logo in order to raise funds.

I am always unsure about a children’s hospital within the UK having to rely on charitable donations. If a government collecting taxes to fund the NHS cannot look after the needs of sick children then where is the money going?

Hopefully all the charitable donations will be used wisely.

You can donate to the hospital and read about some of the projects funded by charity.

GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL CHARITY

However, it is particularly concerning that with all the extra money, which must be substantial, donated through charity, that this sort of thing has been reported in recent years.

CALL FOR GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL TO BE INVESTIGATED

Perhaps the priorities require some readjusting?

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