Debate, Nordland Hospital | The hospital in Bodø: born of a pandemic
Chronicle This is an article written by an external contributor. The chronicle expresses the writer’s views.
The small hospital that was built in Bodøsjøen in 1796, was the first in northern Norway. It represents a whole new way of thinking: This hospital was meant to heal sick people. The institutions that existed before were for storage, not treatment.
The reason for building a hospital in Nordland was very concrete – and thought-provoking for us who are in a global pandemic: The authority was concerned about a contagious disease that had begun to spread in large parts of Norway – what was called “radesyken” . It was understood as a serious threat. So serious that the authorities in Denmark-Norway were willing to spend large sums of money to fight it.
The only thing we can be absolutely sure about radish disease is that we do not know what it was. It originated around the middle of the 18th century and disappeared again around 100 years later. Probably the understanding that this was a specific disease made sense for a period of time, and that these perceptions became less meaningful with time. In any case, the rheumatic disease was perceived as frightening. It was described as a disease that led to horrific wounds and could be fatal. The hospital was the most important tool. The diocesan official in Trondheim, who had control of the whole of northern Norway from Kristiansund to Vardø, seriously stated in 1780 that «a hospital is and will be the only remedy that was powerful enough».
The traditional story about the hospital in Bodøsjøen has revolved around that it was created on a local initiative, especially through the work of Erik Schytte, the parish priest in Bodø and the rector in Salten. He was one of many “priest doctors” in Norway. Schytte also had some years of study in medicine behind him. He was even given the title of professor by the king and was referred to as “Asklepios” of the diocese of Nordland – that is, as the Greek god of the art of play.
Just as fully, it was the king and central administration in Copenhagen who took the initiative to build the hospital in Lake Bodø. They did so with good help from the Norwegian local authorities, the diocesan sheriff in Trondheim and the sheriff in Nordland. But the bureaucrats in the capital clearly stated that the hospital should be built and equipped on the model of the district hospitals that had already been built in the south. In this way, Northern Norway’s first hospital became the northernmost outpost of a coordinated and centrally controlled action to combat the new and frightening threat from the pandemic that had hit Norway.
Both Schytte and the county governor were supporters of a hospital in Nordland. But they suggested placing it in Rødøy parish on Helgeland, perhaps because the population base was slightly larger than in Salten. It was the diocesan clerk who cut through in 1788 and decided that the hospital should be located in Salten. He argued with logistics. People from Vesterålen and Lofoten could not travel as far as Rødøy to visit the hospital. This is how it turned out in Bodøsjøen, where both the rectory and the county manor were already.
A hospital was, of course, useless without the art of playing. The German Johan Winter was the first to use the hospital in 1796. He traveled extensively around Nordland with his cures, he vaccinated against smallpox and he gathered patients at the hospital to treat them. Like his playmates from back to antiquity, he had a clear understanding that diseases could be contagious and was rationally concerned about the spread of infection, especially with ships from Bergen. He did not hesitate to hit how effective his cures were. In 1799 he had requisitioned 30 patients from Andøya to stay at the hospital. All suffered from a dangerous and contagious disease. Everyone must have been completely healthy after the treatment he gave them.
Equally full: In 1810 Johan Winter left the hospital and moved to Skei by Alstadhaug. What had been the spearhead of the northern Norwegian health service remained in decline for many decades. How could this happen? Because the Napoleonic Wars had cut off the connection between Copenhagen and the province of Norway. When the Danish-Norwegian state no longer functioned, neither did anyone hold his hand over the hospital. The decline of the hospital is an indication that the local interest in institutions was not worldwide.
It was not until the 1830s that the hospital was rebuilt – then in the center of the new city. The new hospital in Bodø in 1881 pointed forward to the granite palace at Rensåsen. That Bodø’s first hospital was a child of the threat of a pandemic is a perspective that may be thought-provoking in 2021.
In connection with the publication of «Medicinal-Indretningen. The history of Nordland Hospital from 1796-2020 »presents AN three chronicles of the authors. This is the third. The two previous 16 and 17 December:
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