VPRS 17578 Admission Book Ward 1 (Septic Ward)

This Admission Book recorded the details of patients admitted to Ward 1, the Septic Ward, and the outcome of their treatment i.e. discharge from hospital or transfer to another ward. Entries for the patients moved to Ward 1 as an internal transfer, were written in red.The Admission Book for Ward 1 includes both gynaecological and midwifery patients. For the latter category, the volume records whether the newborn baby was sent home with the mother. The Admission Book did not include any further details of each infant and its function was clearly to record the details of the adult patient.Each patient's details were recorded in a double page column format and the entries were arranged according to date of admission. The column headings comprise: Surname; Christian Names; M [Married] / S [Single] / W [Widowed] ; Date Admitted; Date Discharged; Was Baby Sent Home With Mother; Transfer - From Ward / To Ward; Age; Permanent Address; Religion; Country or State of Birth; Husbands or Own Occupation; Telephone Number; PARA [number of pregnancies if known]; Honorary [name of doctor]; Admitted By; Remarks.The volume comprises folios bound into a Kalamazoo. As each page is double sided, the very first page of the volume is the second half of the double page format. The first page with the patient's names was most likely kept on the back of the last page of the previous Kalamazoo.This is the only surviving volume from a larger sequence of records and therefore the extant representation of a hospital function that was a legacy of the pre-antibiotic era. The Septic Ward was established in 1912 and closed in 1970. By then there was no need to isolate patients with severe infections and The Royal Women's Hospital ceased its practice of keeping a separate ward for septic patients.