What disease might this be???!

[pippalew]

My Gran was in a hospital for a few weeks in the 1950's. She told me that she had a "tropical disease" (not sure how, she never left the UK!?)

My dad remembers her coming home and having daily injections for months afterwards. He said that they had to boil the syringe every morning and that he remembers an awful smell of chemicals etc. I'm wondering if she actually had TB?

If its any help, this was Salford in the early to mid 1950's and my granny always insisted that she was one of the first people to have been given whatever drug it was that she had...she would always call it penicillin,but clearly THAT'S not right!

Any suggestions? Cheers, Pippa.

[meles]

Had a browse through "Tropical diseases" on Google, and of the many horrible things your Gran might have caught in the UK, Cholera, Hepatitis, Polio (didn't know that was tropical), and Typhoid seem possible candidates. And I seem to recall that a breakthrough in polio came in the early 50's.

Any other ideas, people?

meles

[Gadget]

Hi Pippa

As meles says, it could have been lots of nasties 

Can your Dad remember any of her symptoms? Also would it me one of the mycins- streptomycin, etc. I think they were early antibiotics and were used against TB.

Gadget

PS - I'm sure penicillin was around by the mid 50s, see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penicillin

[pippalew]

Thanks for the answers! I suspected that it might be streptomycin.  I have one photo of her in the hospital, the shot is taken of a group of women and nurses, through an open window,which leads me to think that there was no visiting? Again making me think it was TB.

My dad doesn't remember anything about it all except this dreadful smell from the boiled needles!

I wish I'd thought to ask her more about this, (and many other things!) its all frustrating! Cheers, Pippa.

[Gadget]

Hi again 

It's all coming back to me. I was quite young in the early-mid 50s but I do remember that the two BIG diseases were polio and TB. In the village that I grew up in, a few people did have TB and they were taken to an isolation hospital about 15 miles away, I believe that the wards were as you describe.

There was still a kind of stigma attached to TB then, so your grandmother's description of a 'tropical disease' would fit.

Just thinking, did your father have any tests? The families involved, as far as I know, were also checked.

It was probably a notifiable disease, so there might be registers somewhere - ? health authority.

Gadget

[nuff]

chloramphenicol would be in mass production by then as well. Also tetracycline.

[pippalew]

Again, thanks all of you! I am now pretty certain it was TB. I have looked at the other suggestions and they don't fit in terms of treatment times so I'm ruling them out.  I think that she might have said tropical disease for the reason gadget suggested! A bit of pride coming into play perhaps.

I think that streptomycin was being inroduced around the late 40's and early 50's so I'll assume this was it. If anyone knows wher records of communicable diseases are kept it would be great! Thanks again, Pippa!

[hepburn]

I remember an outbreak of smallpox in the fifties,I wonder whether that was contained in the home.

[manmack]

penicillin was introduced in ww2,around 1943/44,the tropical disease could have been the smallpox epidemic in the 1950s,not sure,but i think it was brought back by soldiers who had returned from serving abroad, she would have had to go into isolation,TB is only passed on by mouth to mouth contact [or spit]mack