Introduction
The grandfather
of Frank Ogston (1846) was Alexander Ogston (1766), the founder of the candle
manufactory in Loch Street, Aberdeen which, over time, evolved into one of the
two most significant sites in Scotland for the production of candles and soap. The story of the manufacturing branch of
“Remarkable Ogstons”, has been told elsewhere on this blogsite, see “The
Remarkable Ogstons of Aberdeen: Flax, Candles and Soap”. Francis Ogston (1803), Professor of
Medical Jurisprudence at Aberdeen University had two sons, Alexander (1844) and
Francis (Frank) (1846), both of whom also trained as doctors. Francis Ogston’s life story is also recounted
on this blogsite, see “The Remarkable Ogstons of
Aberdeen. Francis Ogston (1803 - 1887),
Professor of Medical Logic and Medical Jurisprudence at Aberdeen University“. Son Alexander was very bright and pursued a
dazzling career both as a surgeon and as a research bacteriologist, discovering
and naming Staphylococcus and demonstrating the role of this bacterium
in the production of suppuration in surgical wounds. His story can be found here, too, see “The Remarkable Ogstons of Aberdeen. Alexander Ogston (1844 – 1929) Surgeon and
Pioneering Bacteriologist”. Frank trained as a doctor, but only after
starting a career in commerce, which he appeared not to enjoy. Thus, when he graduated in 1873, his progress
was lagging about eight years behind that of his outstanding brother, though
Alexander was only the senior by two years.
Frank then struggled to establish himself in a medical career in
Aberdeen and appeared to be constantly overshadowed by Alexander. At about the same time, Frank suffered a
crushing personal tragedy. In 1879 he
married a local girl, Charlotte Rhind, but she developed pulmonary tuberculosis
and died four years later. There were no
children from the marriage. Frank was so
badly affected that he decided to emigrate to the South Island of New Zealand
and left in 1886 to remake his life there.
He became an expert in public health and his struggles to establish good
public health practices in his adoptive country exercised him for the rest of
his life. This is Frank Ogston’s story.
Frank Ogston
(1846)’s education and initial employment
Only a hazy
account of Frank’s pre-university education and employment has been
uncovered. He appears to have been a pupil
at Aberdeen Grammar School, the educator of choice for the professional classes
of Aberdeen, though in his writings and speeches Frank only made a brief
general mention of this fact. Unlike his
brother, Alexander, he did not proceed immediately to medical school when his
secondary school days had been completed.
Instead, he worked in the North of Scotland Bank (founded 1836) “for
some years”, possibly during the period 1863 – 1866. Interestingly, his father, Francis, was a
partner in that bank between about 1848 and 1853 and was then elected a
director in most years until his death in 1887.
At that time, Francis had been a member of the board for 29 years. His father’s involvement with this bank would
at least have alerted Frank to the possibility of working for the company and
may have been instrumental in steering him into the job. His position in the North of Scotland Bank
appeared to hold little allure for Frank Ogston, as he moved to another post
with a “mercantile house” in Glasgow, perhaps for the year 1867. This calling too palled and about 1868, when
he was about 22, he followed his brother and his father in studying Medicine,
like his brother, in the Medical Faculty of Aberdeen University. Better late than never!
By the summer
of 1872, Frank Ogston had passed all his medical school examinations to allow
him to graduate, but he did not immediately follow this track. Instead, like his father and his brother, he
spent a period of time, probably academic year 1872 - 1873, in continental
Europe learning at leading medical centres.
He certainly spent the winter session in Prague, studying Hygiene and
Toxicology with Prof Maschka, a personal friend of both his father and his
brother. Frank Ogston also spent time
in Paris under the guidance of Prof Bouchart and Prof Jardieu. Additionally, Frank was reported to have
studied in Germany and in Vienna, but no details of such sojourns have been
uncovered. On returning to Aberdeen in
summer 1873, he graduated with the degrees of MB and CM.
Frank Ogston’s
first reported action as a doctor appears to have been an informal one which
occurred in 1871, before his graduation from medical school. A post boy was thrown from a gig in Aberdeen,
cut his head and sprained his neck. He
was “seen by Dr F Ogston jun at the Post Office”. However, Frank’s first formal medical role
was as assistant to his father, the Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, which appointment
was made in August 1873, just after Frank’s graduation. This position was renewed annually until
1883. It will be recalled that Francis
Ogston senior was also the police surgeon and, from 1874, Frank Ogston was
frequently involved in incidents of murder, assault and the likes, amounting
over the years to more than 500 cases.
He also carried out post-mortem examinations. No formal appointment has been found for Frank
Ogston to this role, which was also the case with his brother, and it is presumed
that his father delegated him as a substitute.
At this time, Frank Ogston seems to have been casting around for other
formal roles. In 1874, the medical
officer to the Old Machar Parochial Board was dismissed and Frank Ogston threw
his hat in the ring to be the replacement appointee, though he later withdrew
his candidature. The following year
Frank also applied to be the medical officer to the Aberdeen Dispensary, but he
was unsuccessful. This position became
vacant again in March 1876, but Frank once again was passed over, though he
came a “close second”. Finally, success
came calling in September of the same year when he was offered and accepted a
role with the Aberdeen Dispensary.
It appears that
this recently graduated doctor continued his academic studies, while searching
for suitable employment, as he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine in
1875. The University also engaged Frank
Ogston in a teaching role from session 1877 – 1878, when he taught a course in
Practical Toxicology, clearly built upon the material that he had learned
during his sojourn with Prof Maschka in Prague.
In 1880, Francis Ogston senior resigned as Medical Officer of Health and
Police Surgeon and Frank junior was a candidate, and a credible contender on
the basis of his experience of police and public health work, to replace his
father. However, he was
unsuccessful. A similar fate befell
Frank three years later when his father resigned from the position of Professor
of Medical Logic and Medical Jurisprudence and Frank applied to replace
him. Unfortunately, Frank tumbled at
this hurdle, too, Dr Matthew Hay of Edinburgh University gaining the
appointment. The success, which had
always attached itself to the medical careers of both his father and his
brother, seemed to be eluding Frank, though he did enjoy one significant
publishing success alongside his father.
Francis Ogston senior’s Lectures on Medical Jurisprudence became so well
regarded that it was decided to publish them in book form. Frank Ogston acted as editor of this volume,
which appeared in 1878 and dealt specifically with Medicine in relation to
Scottish law for the first time. Other
family help came from George Cadenhead, Mrs Amelia Ogston’s brother, the Procurator
Fiscal for Aberdeen, and from James, her nephew and the only son of George
Cadenhead. James Cadenhead became a
well-known landscape and portrait painter and produced the line drawings illustrating
the volume.
Frank Ogston
marries for the first time
In 1879, Frank
Ogston married Charlotte Rhind, the daughter of a deceased Free Church
minister, who lived in Crown Terrace in central Aberdeen. Only two and a half years later, about the
beginning of 1882, Charlotte was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis. She died in mid-1883 at 156 Union Street, the
grand townhouse which Frank had taken over from his father about two years
previously. There were no children born
of this brief marriage. It must have
been a crushing blow for Frank Ogston to lose his young wife to this
untreatable, wasting infection and it also came at a difficult time in the
development of his career, when he was struggling to gain a prestigious
position. By 1886, Frank decided to
remove himself from Aberdeen, ostensibly under the influence of his bereavement
and the daily reminders of his personal loss.
From this perspective, Frank appeared to conclude that he should depart
to the Antipodes and put the maximum distance between himself and the memories
of his lost love. This motivation was
confirmed in a newspaper report after his arrival in the new country. “Dr Ogston was settled in Aberdeen when death
visited his home making it desolate and inducing him to seek change of scene
and country with a view of restoring happiness”. This translocation to the Antipodes would
also have moved Frank out from under the shadow of his brother’s burgeoning
career and would perhaps open up new job opportunities too.
Frank Ogston
emigrates to New Zealand
From the 1840s,
there had been heavy settlement of New Zealand, and especially the southern
half of the South Island (Otago and Southland), by Scots, under the influence
of the Free Church of Scotland. Dunedin
(Dùn
Èideann is the Scotch Gaelic name for Edinburgh) was, and is, the capital of Otago and
was established in 1848 at the head of a natural harbour. A gold rush in the 1860s established the town
for some time as the largest and wealthiest in New Zealand. Dunedin has been strongly influenced by the
importation and preservation of Scottish (mostly Highland) culture. What better place for Frank Ogston to seek to
reset his life and put behind him the personal traumas of his recent existence
in Aberdeen? There is evidence that
Frank specifically sought a job in Otago and that the first position that he
was offered, and accepted, was quite ordinary in nature and in no sense a step
up from his work in the North-East of Scotland.
In April 1886, the New Zealand newspaper, the Timaru Herald, published
the following story. “The residents in the Mackenzie Country
have at last the prospect of a doctor settling in the district. It is about 18
months since the Mackenzie County Council together with the Oddfellows at
Fairlie Creek endeavoured to induce a doctor to settle among them, the Council
offering £125 per annum, and the Oddfellows a certain amount per member,
amounting to about £75 per annum, this being in addition to private practice,
but until recently without any success. The Mackenzie County Council put
themselves in communication with Captain Sutter, M.H.R. for the district, in
regard to the matter, who wrote to Aberdeen, with the result that Dr
Ogston from the University of that city accepted the appointment and was
to leave for New Zeeland last month …”.
McKenzie County occupies a high plateau of sheep farming country in the
centre of the South Island. In the late
19th century, it was remote and very rural. Acceptance of this position by Frank Ogston
looked like an act of near desperation.
However, Frank did not take up this position as community physician in
McKenzie County, telling that body that his health would not allow him to
accept the job. Instead, he was
appointed to the role of Lecturer in Public Health and Medical Jurisprudence at
the University of Otago. It was reported
that he initially turned down this second post, but later accepted it. To his great credit, Frank Ogston took
responsibility for letting down the good people of McKenzie County. He engaged his brother, Alexander, to recruit
a replacement in the person of Dr Henry Angus, “one of the most rising young doctors in the Aberdeen
University, for the appointment, who will leave Aberdeen early next month to
fill the appointment of Health Officer for the Mackenzie County. Dr Angus is a
single man and will take up his residence at Fairlie Creek. This will confer an
inestimable boon upon the residents, as the want of a doctor has been keenly
felt, there being, none nearer than at Timaru”.
Prof Alexander Ogston’s undertaking went further than this, since he
undertook to find a regular supply of young doctors until one stuck to McKenzie
County.
The
establishment of Otago University
In 1870, Otago Provincial Council passed the Otago
University Ordinance, which established the institution of that name as a
corporate body, with powers to grant degrees in arts, medicine, law and
music. It opened its doors for classes
in July 1871 with an academic staff of three professors. For many years, as Frank Ogston was to find,
it ran on a shoestring budget. Also in
1870, another higher education initiative was underway in the “land of the long
cloud”, when the University of New Zealand was created by Act of Parliament and
became the examining and degree-granting body for all New Zealand higher
education institutions. Otago University
gave up its independent status to fall in with the rest of New Zealand’s higher
education colleges. The
first report of the appointment of Frank Ogston appeared in mid-January
1886. “Mr Frank Ogston, M.D. and C.M. of
Aberdeen University, was appointed lecturer on Public Health and Medical
Jurisprudence, at a salary of £200 per annum”.
The new academic year started in New Zealand at the beginning of May, so
Frank Ogston had many preparations to make in the “auld country” before taking
to the high seas.
On 19th February, a farewell supper was given to
Frank Ogston at the Imperial Hotel, Aberdeen, with a variety of prominent
Aberdonians being present, including, Lord Provost Matthews, Professor Stirling
and Prof Stevenson. Col Jamieson MD, of
Peterhead, presided. Frank’s brother,
Alexander, by that date the Senior Surgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and Prof
of Surgery in Aberdeen University, gave a speech, though its text has not been
discovered. The evening concluded with
the singing of “Auld Lang Syne” (literally “Old Long Since”). Frank Ogston then instructed the sale of
furniture and personal effects at his home, 156 Union Street, though the disposal
did not occur until after his departure.
The vessel which carried the emigrant Frank to New Zealand was the
4,448-ton ss Coptic of the Shaw Saville Line.
He boarded the vessel in London, from whence it departed on 25 February,
calling at Plymouth, Cape Town and Hobart before arriving at Dunedin on 16
April1886. In May, Frank Ogston applied
to have his name placed on the Medical Register of the Colony of New
Zealand. At the end of June of the
following year he attended the annual meeting of the Medical Society, being
appointed its librarian. In July of 1887
the first edition of the New Zealand Medical Journal was published. It contained a paper from Frank Ogston on the
poisoning cases he had encountered over the past year. Thus, Frank Ogston established himself in the
medical community of Otago.
Although Frank Ogston’s starting salary had been £200 per
year, perhaps to match the remuneration offered to him by McKenzie County, it
was reduced to £150 per year in 1889 and was further reduced in 1894, when Dr
Ogston’s appointment was renewed for a period of three years, to £120 per
year. The university continued to
struggle financially and in 1902, the Government offered a contribution of
£1,500, provided that the university raised £750 locally. Frank Ogston contributed £5. In 1904 another financial crisis struck. At that time, Frank was being paid £125 per
year. A deputation was sent to talk to
the colony’s premier to ask for a grant plus an annual sum to put the medical
school on a sound financial footing.
They had previously asked for financial help but had suffered the
embarrassment of discovering their calculations were in error. They had reduced the salaries of their
lecturers so far that they would be unable to replace anyone if he
departed. Two of the staff were even
working for nothing. In 1907, the Otago
Medical School reached its majority and Frank Ogston had been a member of staff
throughout that period. For the first
time in that year, a student could pursue the whole of his medical course and
graduate from the institution. Perhaps
not before time, Frank Ogston was raised to the status of professor in June
1909, but it was not long before his university position changed again. In December of the same year, the University
Council resolved to terminate his appointment as Professor of Medical
Jurisprudence and Public Health but to reappoint him, on a salary of £100 plus
class fees, as Professor of Medical Jurisprudence. Frank Ogston was happy to accept this change
of role and title. Curiously, the
following year he was appointed as an examiner in both Medical Jurisprudence
and Public Health. Frank Ogston’s academic status was
recognised by the University of Otago in 1891 when he was nominated as an
examiner, along with Dr Truby King, in public health and jurisprudence.
But in 1888,
all was not well with the affairs of the medical school. Rumours were circulating, including in
letters to the local press, that the provision of lectures was haphazard and
incomplete and that there were other problems, such as a lack of punctuality,
with the conduct of the institution.
These rumours were very upsetting for the staff of the school, and they
collectively nominated a deputation, led by Dr Colquhoun and including Frank
Ogston, to wait on the University Council, asking that body to address the
situation and to establish an investigation into the charges made. Dr Colquhoun said he was confident that there
had been “no serious neglect of duty by any members of the medical school”,
effectively admitting that there was at least some substance in the rumours,
but also claiming that matters were steadily improving and complaining that the
press should have been more supportive.
The University Chancellor admitted that a deputation of complainants had
been to see him, but he would take no action to bring the matter before Council
unless a written account was presented, but this had not happened. The Council had appointed a committee of
inquiry to look into the rumours, and that body had produced a report
suggesting some improvements for the future.
However, the academic deputation did not like the way that the inquiry
was conducted since it did not give academics the chance to give their side of
the story. Frank Ogston thought that the
inquiry had been undertaken in a very unjust manner since staff were not
questioned about their particular classes.
A correspondent of the Evening Star, sailing under the nom de plume
of “Puck” later suggested that “Dr Ogston’s fiery vindication of his wounded
honour” was perhaps a case of protesting too much. The outcome of the debate in Council was a
resolution “That it be an intimation to the Committee already appointed to
examine all the teachers connected with the medical school”. The staff had got their desired outcome, but
the report of the committee of inquiry hardly exonerated them.
The main
recommendation to emerge from the investigation was that a Faculty of Medicine
should be created which would be composed of members of staff in the medical
school together with honorary members of medical staff in the hospital. Government would be vested in a dean appointed
by the University Council and a sub-dean to be chairman of the hospital staff
for the time being. “The function of the
faculty should be to regulate the attendance of the professors and lecturers
and all matters connected with the teaching in the medical school, subject to
the approval of the University Council and, in the case of teaching in the
hospital, subject also to the approval of the Hospital Trustees”. But a specific mechanism was added to monitor
attendance. “With a view to secure
punctuality on the part of the professors and lecturers of the medical school
and regular attendance on the part of the professors and lecturers shall call
and mark a roll at the commencement of each lecture and shall send a monthly
report to the Council through the dean or sub-dean as may be deemed”. In effect, the academic staff were being
required to sign in to prove their timely presence, a bit like untrustworthy
adolescents.
In late 1909,
the Evening Star published a series of articles on the future of education in
New Zealand, consisting of thoughtful contributions from people of status in
the educational establishment. Frank
Ogston was one such contributor. On the
question of the various university colleges in the colony becoming independent
degree-awarding bodies, Frank was quite clear in rejecting that idea. “The standard of such local degrees would be
lowered, as the element of competition might come in between the rival
universities”. Frank had made an
insightful and visionary prediction of grade inflation, which now plagues
higher education in many parts of the world, more than a century later! On the question of representation on the
governing bodies of the universities, he was much in favour of wide
representation so that the universities would come to be viewed as belonging to
all strata in society. Also, there
should be rolling membership of governing bodies, so that there was both
continuity and turnover. This approach
had served Scotland well and was, in his opinion, needed in New Zealand.
Frank Ogston’s inaugural lecture
Only two weeks after his arrival in Dunedin, Frank Ogston
was required to deliver an inaugural lecture, which took place on Monday 3 May
in Old Knox church. Interestingly, he
chose to lecture on “Bacteria”, the crucial common factor between the work of
his father on public health and his brother on the cause of post-operative
suppuration, and the subject of revolutionary work at that time by Lister,
Pasteur, Koch and others, though it appears that he did not mention either of
his relatives by name during his talk, the text of which has been
preserved. Even today, it reads well as
a summary of the historical development of knowledge about infectious disease
and its treatment, the prevalence of bacteria in, on and about us and the role
of many bacterial species as useful scavengers in our environment. Sadly, for both Frank and the attentive
members of his audience, the student faction was very disruptive, aping the
noisy behaviour of their Scottish cousins during capping ceremonies. But if Frank Ogston’s audience contained
members of the general public, including local councillors and officials, able
to hear what he said, it is to be wondered how many of them took in the
significance of this new understanding of the microbial world. It is doubtful if more than penny numbers had
an inkling of the impact this new knowledge, promulgated by Frank Ogston, would
have on the conduct of the daily lives of the inhabitants of Otago and
Southland in the following two decades.
Frank Ogston’s early employment in New Zealand
It was not long before Frank Ogston’s expertise in
toxicology was being employed. In
September 1886 he acted as an expert witness in a case of alleged attempted
poisoning. Frank deposed that Mrs Hall,
the alleged victim, had symptoms consistent with the administration of an
irritant poison. He subsequently
analysed some samples of her vomit, finding antimony, a member of that toxin
category, present. He also examined the
drainage system at Mrs Hall’s residence and found it to be in order. Other cases requiring Frank’s expertise soon
followed, involving tissue analyses and the performance of post-mortem
examinations. When he appeared in court
in January 1887, he had to be carried in as he was suffering from a broken leg,
though the cause of his incapacitation has not been uncovered. This Aberdonian émigré also sought to hold a
hospital appointment. In 1888, Drs De Zouche, Teevan and Ogston applied
for the position of physician to the children’s outpatient department of the
Dunedin hospital. Dr De Zouche was
preferred over Francis Ogston. Later the
same year there was a further election of staff to an honorary position at the
local hospital. On this occasion Frank
Ogston, along with Dr De Zouche, was again passed over. Frank Ogston was finally successful in
securing an honorary hospital post in December 1889 and in the following year
he attended 207 patients there. By 1888,
Frank Ogston was carrying out surgical operations though he had not
particularly trained as a surgeon. He
was also conducting inspections of domestic properties in relation to their
sanitary condition, a service he also provided for the drains of the university
buildings and of the Dunedin hospital, both of which were found wanting. Frank, in further public health work, also
fronted an inquiry into the state of Dunedin’s slaughterhouses and he expressed
concern that diseased animals might be passing on infections to humans. In his opinion, there was a definite need for
public slaughterhouses and for them to be regularly inspected, with penalties
for disobeying the rules. Frank was
particularly concerned by the risk of tuberculosis, hydatid cysts (caused by
tapeworm larvae) and trichinosis (caused by nematodes) being transmitted. But he also seemed to give opinions which
extended beyond the established status of human knowledge at the time, opining
that animal carcases with cancer would pose a danger to human health.
However, he soon found that limitations hemmed in his
practice of modern medicine in this outpost of empire. Although Otago University possessed a medical
school, it lacked a proper medical reference library. He also found that his university room was
deficient in its plumbing arrangements, but his application to have matters
rectified was deferred, perhaps due to a lack of funds.
Frank Ogston marries for a second time to the sporting Miss
Kate Ridings
By a year and a half after his arrival in New Zealand,
Frank Ogston had met a new lady with whom to share his life. Her name was Kate Mary Ridings, a resident of
Auckland in the North Island. She was 35
and Frank was 41 when they married in 1887.
It has not been discovered how the couple met, but it is possible that a
common love of golf was the catalyst which brought them together. Frank had been a keen and active member of
the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club in Scotland and would become a founder member of
the Otago Golf Club, which came into existence in 1892. Its course was created at Wakari Road,
Roslyn, a suburb of Dunedin, where it still exists. Frank Ogston was the club’s president in
1908. A ladies’ golf club was also
formed in 1892 and held its first medal competition in December of that year,
which was won by Mrs Ogston with a score of 88.
Kate Ogston hailed from a sporting family, her brother, James Ridings,
being a tennis player of national significance.
Mrs Ogston also played lawn tennis and in 1889 was elected a
vice-president of the Otago University Lawn Tennis Club. She also occasionally attended meetings of
the Otago Hounds.
Kate Mary Ridings
Kate Ogston’s passion for golf stayed with her for many
years. In 1904, the final match of the
Otago ladies’ championship was played off in early May between Mesdames Ogston
and Fergus, the former winning by 4 and 2.
The local evening newspaper described her performance as follows. “Mrs Ogston played a very fine game and on
finishing the round her score was found to be 91 – a record for the
links”. Kate was then aged 51 and a
scratch golfer. Three years later she
was still the club champion and was described as a “strong and enthusiastic
player”. Although the Otago Ladies Golf
Club shared a course with the men, it had a separate clubhouse but in 1906, the
shared playing facilities were the subject of an unpleasant, sexist
dispute. The men’s golf club, which
appeared to control the use of the course, decreed that the women would not be
allowed to play on certain holidays, presumably because they would get in the
way of the members of the alternative gender pursuing their matches. Frank Ogston, perhaps under the influence of
his spouse, protested at this new ruling, but the men’s club chairman was
immovable.
Mrs Francis Ogston
Frank Ogston had learned to fish in Scotland and found
excellent facilities for the sport in his adoptive country. His new wife joining him in his pursuit of
this slippery quarry and the efforts of the couple were occasionally noted in
the local press. In January 1889, Frank
and his wife were fishing the Waipahi river near the border with
Southland. “The doctor landed one fine
fish of 6lbs and several smaller ones, weighing in all 10lbs. Mrs Ogston who is quite a novice in matters
pisicultural has, I hear, managed to land two fine fish with the fly unaided”.
The Ogstons and cultural pursuits
In addition to golf, Frank Ogston and his wife devoted some
of their leisure time to artistic pursuits.
Kate Ogston was a capable painter, particularly of native plants, and
her efforts were frequently exhibited in Dunedin and elsewhere in the
country. In 1888, a major event, the
Melbourne Exhibition, was held in Australia to celebrate the centenary of
European settlement of that country. Mrs
Kate Ogston had on display six water-colour paintings of New Zealand
flowers. Frank also found expression for
his artistic leanings. In 1896 he
presented a set of his own carved picture frames to the Dunedin Golf Club. Frank Ogston had attended a course in woodcarving,
given by a Dane, Miss Gether, at Dunedin Technical School. Kate Ogston clearly took her painting
materials with her when the couple was travelling, as shown by the titles of
pictures that she subsequently exhibited such as “At Suez” painted on the trip
to Great Britain in 1900 and “A creek near Mount Cook”, the highest mountain in
New Zealand, located in the Southern Alps.
She also painted when she and her daughter travelled to Germany in 1908
– 1909 and she even sent home a painting of Lake Constance in Germany to be
exhibited at the Otago Art Exhibition at the end of 1908.
Apart from her sporting and artistic talents, Kate Ogston
had a fine mezzosoprano voice and sang in the Dunedin Ladies’ Choir. In 1897, Frank Ogston supported the formation
of a choral society for Dunedin. He and
Mrs Ogston also enjoyed the theatre. By
the winter of 1902, the Ogstons had established a weekly Coreen Glee Club which
met on Saturday evenings. It proved to
be a very popular winter activity in Dunedin.
The last meeting of the club the following season was particularly
successful, being attended by “a large number of visitors and members”. “The programme consisted of six or seven
glees, besides solos, duets, trios and piano solos. … all felt they had enjoyed
a delightful evening’s musical entertainment, which finished up with a
recherché (exotic) supper served in the dining room”. The Otago Witness noted in June 1906 that the
first meeting of the Coreen Glee Club was taking place on the following
Saturday evening. “This popular club has
now been in existence for some years and instead of, as in many such societies,
the interest waning somewhat, it seems to increase with every season. New members now find it difficult to join the
Coreen Club, there being always more members on the roll than are actually
required for part-singing, and those who are members are unwilling to give up
their claim”. Mrs Kate Ogston was
clearly an accomplished hostess and certainly knew how to enjoy life.
The Ogstons’ only daughter, Coreen
After his marriage to Kate Ridings, Frank Ogston
commissioned architect Henry Hardy to design a house for him and his wife. It was 2-story, brick-built and its address
was 48 High Street, Dunedin. Frank
Ogston’s acquisition of a substantial home near the middle of Dunedin gave him
appropriate premises from which to conduct his private medical practice. His hours for consultations were from 11.00am
to 1.00pm and 7.00pm to 8.00pm. The marriage produced only one child, Frances
Katherine Coreen, known by the last of her three given names, who was born at
48 High Street in July 1890. Being an
only child, Coreen was indulged by her parents.
As she, grew up, her
mother started to include her in the social activities of the Dunedin ladies
and their families. In 1902, when Coreen
was twelve, Kate Ogston arranged “a large children’s dance” at the Ogston’s
High Street home “when everything passed off pleasantly, the host and her little
daughter being most assiduous in looking after the wants of all their
guests”. Two years later,
Kate Ogston gave a juvenile dance for Coreen, then aged 14, and her young
friends and subsequently other such events were lavished on this pampered
singleton. Frank and Kate Ogston’s
daughter attended St Hilda’s Collegiate School, in central Dunedin, an Anglican
establishment founded in 1896. There she
seemed to excel at music and, at the prize-giving ceremony in December 1904,
she played “Butterflies” by Grieg on the piano.
However, she appears not to have been academically inclined. In year four, she was placed in the Remove
class. Coreen, perhaps as a result of
her coddled upbringing, spent her adult life alternately swanning about New
Zealand and travelling back and forth to Europe. She never married.
The Ogstons and the Dunedin upper class
Unlike Britain, New Zealand society had no aristocracy or
landed gentry to form the nucleus of an upper-class, with its own sports,
activities and social events but, nonetheless, such an elevated stratum formed,
perhaps naturally, in this colonial territory.
It was composed mainly of the wives and older daughters of professionals
and wealthier families. Mrs Kate Ogston
was a particularly active member of Dunedin’s upper crust. Her golf, painting, music-making and
entertaining allowing her to mix effortlessly and popularly with ladies of a
similar status and bent. Further, their
activities were regularly reported in the local newspapers, which even had
special correspondents and weekly columns devoted to the doings of this conglomeration
of prominent ladies. Such a column was
“Alice’s letter to her readers” in the “Otago Witness”, which regularly
featured notes on Mrs Ogston’s finery.
The Dunedin Jockey Club’s meetings were occasions which Dunedin ladies
also liked to attend to show off their latest outfits. At the autumn meeting in 1888, “Mrs Dr Ogston”, husband’s status to the
fore, was reported to be present in a costume of “blue serge and white
hat". In June of the same year, a
ball was held at Clyde (a district of Dunedin) Town Hall which was attended by
the Ogstons. Kate Ogston wore a
slate-coloured silk dress “made high to the throat and with long sleeves”. A few examples of entertainments on offer at
the Ogston home at 48 High Street will illustrate the flavour and range of
activities organised by Kate Ogston. In
April 1891, “Mrs Ogston entertained to luncheon on another day, the young
ladies, eight in number, who are to be Miss Haggitt’s bridesmaids upon the 27th
of this month. …. The wedding will cause quite a pleasurable excitement in
social circles, as it promises to be a very pretty one”. Mrs Ridings, Kate Ogston’s mother, had moved
to Dunedin after her father died and in November 1891, while her daughter and
son in law were away on a fishing expedition, Mrs Ridings gave a “large
afternoon tea” at her daughter’s residence.
A “delightful tea party” was held by Mrs Kate Ogston in 1907 at the
Dunedin Golf Club when “some hundreds were present”!
David Boyle,
the Earl of Glasgow was appointed Governor of New Zealand in 1892 and the
following year, on a tour of his charge, there was a reception held in his
honour at the Fernhill Club, Dunedin, a gentlemen’s club. Frank Ogston and his wife were among those
elevated members of Dunedin society who were presented to the governor and his
wife. Similarly, Frank Ogston was
invited to a reception to meet the then new governor of the colony, Lord
Liverpool, in 1912.
In 1904, Dr
Frank Ogston took on the honorary position of local representative for the
Dunedin Centre of the Associated Board of the Royal Academy of Music and the
Royal College of Music, in effect supervising the examinations for musical
grades issued by the RCM and RAM. He
continued in this role for several years, resigning in 1911.
Frank Ogston
and commerce
Frank Ogston
hailed from a line of merchants and manufacturers, most notable of which were
his uncle Alexander Ogston (1799) and his cousins Alexander Milne Ogston (1836)
and James Ogston (1845) who were not only heavily involved in soap and candle
manufacture but also sat on the boards of a wide variety of commercial
companies. Francis Ogston (1803), in
spite of being predominantly a medical practitioner and medical academic, was
also a director of the North of Scotland Bank for many years. Frank Ogston was following in this family
tradition when he became involved in Kempthorne, Prosser’s New Zealand Drug
Company, initially as a shareholder but between 1892 and 1917 as a
director. On his first reappointment to
the board, the chairman said that they had been fortunate to get him as his
scientific knowledge had been valuable to the board. Frank Ogston, perhaps with affected modesty,
responded that he had some diffidence in coming forward, as he knew little
about general business but hoped his knowledge of drugs and instruments would
merit the confidence placed in him by his fellow directors. At the AGM of 1895, the company announced a
dividend of 7½ %. Since the company’s
formation it had distributed in excess of £100,000 to shareholders in
dividends.
By 1900 and
with the threat of the plague visiting Dunedin’s shores, Frank Ogston had
achieved, probably inadvertently, a high public profile in the Otago
capital. Maybe for this reason, he was
engaged to advertise the Blickensderfer typewriter, called simply the “Blicks”
in New Zealand. It had been invented by
George Blickensderfer in the USA and was patented in 1893. The machine was immensely successful, due to
its cheapness (10gns) compared to rivals, its portability and the visibility of
the nascent type to the user. In an
accompanying letter, Frank said that he had dreaded rewriting 1100 – 1200 pages
of lecture notes but found it easy with a week’s free trial of the Blicks. The letter was signed off with his academic
status, Lecturer on Hygiene to the University of Otago.
Frank Ogston’s
social and political views
Frank Ogston
was socially very conservative and his opinion on the provision of social aid
for the poor was firmly based on the Victorian classification of this group
into deserving and undeserving categories.
He gave a full exposition of his stance at a church congress held in
Dunedin in October 1888 and it is best explained in his own words. “Dr
Ogston said that if the scheme sketched out could be put in practice the
world would no doubt be the better, but it must be remembered that there were
two classes requiring help - those who became poor through no fault of their
own, and the more prominent class, who were either drunkards or
spendthrifts. It seemed to him that Mr
Ritchie's scheme made provision for only the first of these classes. In his
(the speaker's) opinion the second class must be considered separately and made
to work and leave off pauperising themselves, and for this reason the parochial
system of relief - abused though it might be - seemed the best. It made the
improvident man feel his position somewhat. Under this system the poor were
relieved by simply keeping them from starvation; nothing more. They were taken
into poorhouses, which were not palatial places like our Benevolent
Institutions, but worse than a prison. A man was separated from his wife and
kept separate, and children were separated from their parents, and all were
forced, if possible, to work. This seemed very hard, especially where people
had come to poverty through no fault of their own; but if we remembered that
every man who drank a glass of whisky the price of which he had not earned was
robbing his honest neighbour of that amount, our sympathy left him, and we felt
that the less an honest labourer was obliged to give him the better. The evil
we felt here of men too lazy to work flocking into the towns to swell the ranks
of pauperism there and become a burden to the citizens was not felt at Home,
because there he would be referred to a place where he had a
"settlement," or failing that to the place where he was born.
Furthermore, at Home the nearest relative, no matter who he might be, was
compelled, if in a position, to contribute towards the support of a pauper,
whereas in New Zealand it was possible to find a man asking aid in Dunedin though
having rich relations in Auckland. On coming to this colony, the state of the
poor filled him with disgust. It seemed to him that the young generation of New
Zealand had already arrived at the condition of the Romans in the worst days of
the empire, when the cry was "Bread and circuses." Whenever we wanted
anything, the cry was that the Government must give it us. There was plenty of
cheap food and cheap luxuries; but people were too lazy to work for small gains
and would prefer to sponge on the Government. In his experience at Home, he had
known something of the working of a society such as Dr Macgregor (he had
made a proposal to which Frank Ogston was responding) had indicated, which
was organised with the object of weeding out the undeserving cases and giving
temporary brotherly relief on the condition that the person relieved would help
the donor to assist another poor brother out of a scrape. That was what was
wanted here. We did not want to give to people, we wanted to lend only. We
wanted to make them feel that if we paid them any money, we took it away from
somebody else, and that if money was given, those who gave it must feel an
obligation, even a necessity, to give it. We must have a labour test for those
who were able to work, and a check on the drunkard and improvident. The
drunkard should be treated not as a criminal, but as a poor diseased person who
required looking after. If these things were done the great bulk of our poverty
would disappear”.
Little direct
evidence has been uncovered of Frank Ogston’s political leanings, though he was
clearly a supporter of the British monarchy and of the British Empire. Not only did he spend much of his life in one
of the colonies, but he also made a donation to the purchase of a bronze
statuette of Cecil Rhodes, the mining magnate and former prime minister of the
Cape Colony who died in 1902, by Glasgow-born sculptor, John Tweed, which was
given to the University of Otago in 1907.
The fate, or current location, of that statuette has not so far been uncovered. He also described resistance to the
construction of a public abattoir on cost grounds as “rankest Toryism” which
suggests he was actually a supporter of a liberal political philosophy.
Travel by the Ogston family
Frank and Kate Ogston, being unencumbered by a large family
and having the financial means at their disposal, regularly travelled around
New Zealand, for example to Hanmer Plains Hot Springs in 1891. This natural
geothermal feature had been known to the Maori for centuries but was first
observed by European settlers in 1859, opening as a visitor attraction for
bathing in 1883. It was claimed that the
hot, sulphurous waters had health-giving properties and a sanatorium was
constructed at the site in 1897. In
October 1899, Dr Ogston applied to the University of Otago for leave of absence
between May and October 1900 and made suggestions for how his lectures might be
delivered in his absence. Leave was
granted and Frank, his wife Kate and daughter Coreen sailed on 2 April 1900 from
Dunedin for Melbourne, where they trans-shipped to the Prinz Regent Luitpold
for the journey to Southampton. While he
was away from New Zealand, Frank Ogston’s private patients were seen by Dr
Blomfield who actually moved into 48 High Street. When, in 1901, Frank was appointed as Health
Officer for Otago and Southland, he necessarily had to travel around his patch
and, on occasion, his wife Kate travelled with him. The pair then took the opportunity to add
walking tours to Frank’s work itinerary.
In early 1904, the Otago Witness reported that “Dr and Mrs Ogston leave
this week for a driving tour of Central Otago”.
In 1906 Frank Ogston made an official visit to Lake Te Anau (Maori for
“Place of the swirling waters”) and Milford Sound in the heart of the Southern
Alps and took his wife and her friend, Miss Peep Gibson, with him. The ladies planned to walk from Milford Sound
to Manapouri and Te Anau, possibly while Frank was on duty. On his return, Frank remarked that he had
been over the greater part of Norway and Switzerland, but he had seen nothing
in either of these countries to compare with the beauty and variety of the
foliage at Milford Sound. In February
1908, Mrs Kate Ogston, accompanied by her daughter, Coreen, left New Zealand to
travel to Europe. They departed on the
Warrimoo, accompanied by Frank Ogston who left the vessel at Wellington to take
a holiday in the North Island, staying away for three weeks and going as far as
Auckland and Rotorua. Mrs and Miss
Ogston travelled on to Germany where they visited Oberammergau in the Bavarian
Alps, the village where the decadal passion play is performed, though it was
not due to be mounted until June and July 1910.
Kate Ogston and her daughter Coreen finally arrived home in Dunedin in
mid-December 1909, having been absent for about 20 months. They were met in Auckland by Frank, who
wanted to escort them down the coast.
While on furlough in Great Britain, Frank had some
professional duties to perform. He
visited Glasgow, where he knew the Officer of Health, Dr Chambers and he
arranged for Frank to visit the modern sewage handling works at Dalmarnock,
which had opened in 1894. Frank was
decidedly unimpressed for three main reasons, firstly the works produced an
intrusive odour, secondly, the sewage sludge was useless as a fertiliser and
had to be dumped (from 1904 in the Firth of Clyde) and thirdly, the system was
expensive. Frank Ogston subsequently
visited another sewage works at Barrhead, which operated on a different
principle, the septic tank system. Dr
Ogston pronounced himself in favour of the septic tank, or some similar system,
which employed bacterial degradation of the waste. He then met with Dr Theodore Thomson, one of
the chief inspectors of the Local Government Board in London, asking his advice
on what Dunedin should do with regard to developing a sewage handling
system. At that time a committee of
experts was sitting in London examining the issues surrounding sewage disposal
and Thomson suggested waiting until their report was published before taking a
decision. He agreed to forward the
committee’s report when it became available.
Frank Ogston also attended a Sanitary Congress in Aberdeen, his hometown,
where he again found the general view on sewage disposal was to employ a bacterial
system.
Frank took the opportunity of his visit to Great Britain to
learn what he could about other developments in public health. He spent a day in the bubonic plague hospital
in Glasgow, which at the time contained 40 – 50 cases of the disease. He found that the main treatment, both for
infected people and contacts, was inoculation, followed by supervision for two
or three weeks. Frank also formed the
view that administrative arrangements for dealing with the plague were very
similar to those being proposed in New Zealand in the Local Government Bill
that had been several times before the New Zealand Legislature, ie, big
districts needed to have well qualified men in charge, but the law needed to be
enforced. With regard to water supplies
in the Home Country, Frank found that extreme care was being taken to prevent
contamination of feeder water courses.
Information was also acquired on the prevention of food adulteration, of
school ventilation and of developments in universities and medical
colleges. Arts degrees had been made
more flexible so that it was now possible to gain a degree in literature,
mathematics, physics or natural science.
At the time, New Zealand still clung to the old, inflexible
arrangement. There was extensive modernisation
of laboratory facilities in the medical schools and the universities were
introducing teaching in technical subjects.
The Ogstons saw the sights of London before travelling to
Scotland where part of August was spent in the Highlands on the small Glendavan
estate of Frank’s brother, Alexander.
While at Glendavan, Mrs Kate Ogston indulged her love of painting and,
when back home, she exhibited a work entitled “A Highland Clachan, Ordie”. Ordie was a clachan (Gaelic for small
settlement) on the edge of the Glendavan estate. The two Ogston brothers had rather
contrasting personalities and appearances.
Frank was “of medium height, stooped, genial and full of fun” while the
elder brother was “tall and quiet”.
“Both loved fishing. Frank loved
golf but AO hated it. AO loved shooting
but Frank did not, possibly due to astigmatism”. The Ogstons returned to Australia from
Southmpton on the ss Barbarossa (10,756 tons), leaving on 15 October 1900 and
arriving at Melbourne on 30 November.
They then travelled on to Dunedin by a different vessel, reaching home
in early December 1900.
New Zealand charitable and learned societies
A variety of societies, some local, some national and some
Australasia-wide, met from time to time in Dunedin, which gave Frank Ogston an
opportunity to meet with peers and to present learned papers. The Kaikorai Church had a Mutual Improvement
Society, an idea borrowed from that worthy movement of the same name in Great
Britain, which aimed to give working men (and sometimes women) the opportunity
to improve their education, presentation skills and personal confidence through
attending lectures, delivering their own talks and participating in
discussions. Frank Ogston gave an
illustrated talk to this society on “Travels in Norway” in mid-1889. The Dunedin Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Animals is the oldest such body in New Zealand, having been
established in 1872. Frank Ogston joined
the society and became a committee member in 1891, remaining a member until at
least 1904. His wife, too, joined the
committee in 1894. Dunedin University
also had a Debating Society which Francis Ogston sometimes attended and in 1893
he gave an address on the “Habits and Institutions of German Students”,
possibly learned from his brother, Alexander, and from his own travels in
Continental Europe. Planning began in
1894 for the staging of the Intercolonial Medical Congress of Australasia two
years hence and Frank Ogston became a member of the executive committee. In 1904, Frank was recruited to the Navy
League of New Zealand. This organisation
was formed in 1896 with the objective of supporting the Sea Cadet Corps.
Charity and charitable societies were much less in evidence
in New Zealand at the turn of the 19th century than they were at the
same time in Scotland. One organisation
that Frank Ogston did support was the formation of the Shipwreck Relief Society
in 1902 and in 1915 he contributed £5 to a fund for the relief of distress in
the Highlands.
Frank Ogston’s views on Public Health and its
administration in New Zealand, especially in Dunedin
In 1891, the Australasian Association for the Advancement
of Science met for the first time in Christchurch, the capital of the South
Island. Section H of the programme dealt
with sanitary science and hygiene, of which Dr Allan Campbell of Adelaide was
the president and Frank Ogston filled the position of secretary. Dr Campbell read a paper entitled “Sanitation
amongst the people” and in the following discussion, Frank Ogston made a
contribution that was reported in the Evening Star, which was revelatory of his
concerns for the state of public hygiene in New Zealand and its prospects for
improvement. “Dr Ogston said he thought
the one thing which stood in the way of progress was the present state of the
law. The medical officer of health had
to be elected by the local bodies, and then the health officer had to warn the
town council, or it was probable that there would be a threat held out that he
would be removed. This was not the case
in England, where the health officer was like the old man of the sea and could
not be got rid of. He wanted to see the
same independence of local bodies here. He
(Dr Ogston) had come out to New Zealand to teach public health and hoped to
have been able to have taken up a health officership, but he would not do so
when he found he would have to be muzzled by the local authorities. (Author’s emphasis). If a health officer discovered disease, “Oh!”
said the town council, “you must not report that we have typhoid or something
else, or we shall frighten away tourists.”
Now, as regarded the practical part of it, there was a great loss of
money in having a number of little boroughs with a full staff of
officials. The money thus spent would be
far better expended on an efficient health staff. They had in their midst typhoid and
diphtheria, which were both preventable and he thought they should use every
argument with their legislators to make this necessary change”. This early statement of Frank Ogston’s
position was indeed prophetic and presaged innumerable battles with local
officialdom to improve public health in Otago and Southland. Frank Ogston’s reference to hoping “to have
been able to have taken up a health officership” appears to have been a
reference to an informal job offer made to him by Dunedin City Council. In a report of a Sanitary Institute meeting
in November 1897, the following was ascribed to Frank Ogston. “Dr Ogston approved of the Bill (Local
Government Bill) which was, he said, in the right direction, its provisions
being modelled on the latest Home system.
He expressed himself strongly in favour of compelling the hill boroughs
to cease polluting the town with their drainage, and he approved of the
provisions of the Bill which would secure air spaces about the houses; but he
was opposed to that portion of the Bill which perpetuated the idea that a town
council might appoint a health officer.
What was wanted was a health officer who must have a life appointment,
and not be liable to be removed by any town council that might feel
aggrieved”. “There are no better health
laws in the world than we have here, but they are systematically disobeyed;
everybody does what he likes, and everybody transgresses the law”. Crucially, Frank Ogston gave some previously
hidden information on the circumstances of his removal to New Zealand in
1886. “He had himself come here under
a promise to be health officer to the city but, like other New Zealand
promises, this one was only made to be broken – he had never heard of it since”. (Author’s emphasis)
There were many disagreements between Dr Ogston and the
local authorities in both the city of Dunedin and the surrounding boroughs on
public health matters. In 1891, the City
Council approved a scheme for the construction of houses in London Street, with
drainage to be provided by septic tanks on site with liquid waste being
conducted away in a drainage tunnel laid under the street. Frank Ogston protested strongly against the
scheme and gave his reasoning to a reporter of the Otago Daily Times. He did not think that the intercepting tanks
would be effective in preventing “solid matter” from reaching the drain under
the street and was thus fundamentally at odds with standard sanitation
practice. It would not be allowed in the
Home Country, and he doubted that such a scheme was legal in New Zealand.
Although he held no official position, at this time, in the
governance or administration of Dunedin, Frank Ogston took every opportunity to
promote modern public health measures to the general population. In 1893, under the auspices of the St John
Ambulance Association he agreed to deliver a lecture series variously described
under the general title of “Healthy Homes”, at which the mayor had agreed to
preside. This innovation was welcomed in
the local press. “Considering the prevalence
of infectious diseases at present in Dunedin, these lectures should be welcomed
by every householder who is desirous of improving his home surroundings, as the
subject is of vital importance to every thinking man and woman in the city”. “… those who attend may expect to be treated
to some eye-openers on the prevalence of preventable diseases”. Frank had chosen his topics from subject
matter recommended by the Worshipful Plumbers Society of London and included
health aspects of drainage, water supply, construction, ventilation, location,
light and contamination. At the
conclusion of the 4th lecture, the chairman, Mrs Dr Reicher praised
Frank Ogston for performing the role of “citizen, patriot and
philanthropist”. In closing the series
with his 6th lecture, Frank Ogston returned to his previous theme of
imperfect law and dismissive local councillors.
The Evening Star summarised his points.
“He said there was no possibility of doing hygienic work in New Zealand,
because all the sanitary inspectors had an insecure tenure of office. Every health officer was appointed by the
local bodies and when he became a little troublesome and advocated some expense
as was necessary, or advocated a change of the law, it was a common thing for
him to be turned away. Until this was
altered the health officer was a superfluity and an absurdity, and so also was
the sanitary inspector. The laws in
Dunedin were chaotic and imperfect and the place lagged behind every other town
in the colony; but it was nobody’s duty to correct the existing state of things
and, day after day, houses were being put up which were imperfectly built and
imperfectly drained. Dr Ogston
entertains no hopes that the conditions which he describes will be improved
until a law is passed requiring every house to be built and drained according
to a certain well-defined plan”.
In July 1895, an announcement was made in the Otago Daily
Times concerning the business of Caversham (a suburb of Dunedin) Borough
Council that Frank Ogston had been offered, and had accepted, the position of
health officer of the borough. This
announcement looks strange, given Frank Ogston’s vow of abstinence from such
roles while the law remained unreformed.
Also, no further reference to the position or to Frank Ogston undertaking
work for Caversham has been uncovered.
It seems likely that the newspaper had made a mistake.
A perfect example of the attitude of Dunedin City Council
to expenditure on health matters arose in 1894 concerning the state of the
upper harbour at Dunedin. The town’s
sewers discharged directly into the harbour and the harbourmaster had
complained that despite dredging, vessels docking in the upper harbour “were
drawn into a bed of filth 6ft deep”. The
colonial secretary had suggested that a board of engineers be established to
examine the drainage of Dunedin, but the city council declined to follow this
advice. Frank Ogston had added his two
penn’orth to the criticism, writing that disease organisms, such as typhoid,
would end up on the foreshore in a viable condition and be spread through the
adjacent district. His opinion was that
it would be cheaper to prevent than to treat these diseases, but the city
council was unmoved. It would be a long
haul to modernise Dunedin’s sewage disposal.
Early in 1894, a letter to the editor of the Otago Daily
Times from a Mr James Stewart (unusually, not hiding behind a pseudonym)
bluntly summarised the dire state of affairs regarding public health in
Dunedin. “Dunedin at present has the
worst municipal health administration of the four largest towns in the
colony. There is neither a properly
constituted board of health nor a medical officer. Sanitary by-laws (as they are known in Great
Britain) do not exist. As a consequence,
we never find a sanitary report issued, or any data as to our progress in
lessening our sickness rate or our high adult death rate. What we do find is that three parts of the
drains now laid are leaky and unventilated; that cesspits abound without any
regulation whatever; that when an easterly wind is blowing the sewer gas is
driven up from the sewer outfalls and distributed into the numerous houses
having faulty and unventilated drains”.
Dunedin was a public health disaster area, but who could or would
attempt to remedy the situation?
In August 1894, there was held in Dunedin an ordinary
meeting of the Otago Branch of the New Zealand Medical Association, where a
dialogue took place on the sanitary condition of the city. The exchange of views was opened by Frank
Ogston reading a paper dealing with Dunedin’s sanitary problems, as he saw
them. “That our city needs improvement
in cleansing, drainage and water supply no one will, I think, dispute who looks
around on our streets – ill-constructed, unswept and, in most of them, the
accumulation of decades of horse droppings and such like, and of foul water
from house wastes stagnating in street channels, undisturbed except by the
abundant rains which, luckily for us, descend upon and flood them with, as we
often think, only too great frequency. While,
as to drainage, our sewers where they exist, are a disgrace to
civilisation. Ill-planned in every way,
they generally serve as deposits for the sewage they should quickly carry away,
as is evident from the fact that two or three times a year tons of filth have
to be ladled out of them and carted away; and what does run away through them
is deposited at their orifices at the upper end
of the harbour to poison the atmosphere which sweeps over the expanse of
foetid mud each receding tide leaves exposed in the middle of our city”. He then went on in similar vein to criticise
the fresh water supply. “Again, can we
contemplate without disgust the water provide for us by the corporation –
unfiltered, muddy, and often smelling so strongly of decomposing matter that
one hesitates before dipping into the morning bath, and cannot but think with
loathing that one has such filth supplied for drinking and cooking of
food”?
His castigation of the city fathers did not end there but,
in belabouring those responsible for the management of the city, he often
seemed to stray into the use of terms which implied a lingering belief in the
miasma theory of disease. This idea,
advanced originally by Hippocrates, held that the smell alone of rotting matter
could cause disease. This theory was
abandoned after 1880 as the germ theory of disease took hold. The following example, drawn from Frank
Ogston’s talk, illustrates the point.
“There is no doubt, too, that the breathing of vitiated (oxygen-depleted)
air, whether depending on overcrowding, defective ventilation, or the entrance
of sewer gas, not only induces phthisis (pulmonary tuberculosis),
pneumonia and other lung diseases, but largely influences the spread of zymotic
(acute infectious) disease and the severity of all kinds of
disease”. Was Frank Ogston simply being
casual in his use of language, which had passed out of fashion in medical
circles more than a decade previously, or was he genuinely confused about the
mechanism of transmission of infectious disease? In view of the topic of his inaugural
lecture, “Bacteria”, given in 1886, the former explanation seems the more
likely. However, the burden of his
diatribe before the New Zealand Medical Association in 1894 was perfectly
clear. Unless Dunedin cleaned up its
act, the city would continue to have periodic visitations by infectious disease
outbreaks, with associated morbidity and mortality.
Following on from Frank Ogston’s paper there was an
interesting discussion in which several important points were made. One caution was that they should be careful
not to exaggerate matters concerned with the sanitation of Dunedin and an
emphasis should be put on facts to help educate the general public to a higher
level. The death rate in Dunedin at that
time actually compared favourably with other New Zealand cities of a similar
size, but that fact might induce complacency in the attitudes of the population
in general and the city fathers in particular.
Another general problem was the disregard of present laws dealing with
sanitation. If those strictures were
generally applied there would be a considerable improvement in the health of
the population. The cost of major
remedial work, for example with the sewers, should not be allowed to become a
reason for general inaction. Even small
advances were worth having. There should
be regular reporting of the incidence of infectious disease so that outbreaks
could be monitored, but the Health Board took a casual attitude to the
publication of statistics. The magnificent
natural setting of the city had been vandalised through casual disregard for
the environment and that had to stop.
But the city officials and councillors were not convinced of the need
for major new spending in view of the conundrum created by the likes of Frank
Ogston telling them they had the worst drainage system in the colony and at the
same time the medical profession admitted that the death rate in Dunedin was
generally low. Frank Ogston was probably
seen by at least some of the city fathers as an extremist who did not mind
exaggerating his case.
The Dunedin Sanitary Institute
One outcome of the public debate on sanitation and
environmental health in general was the formation of the Dunedin Sanitary
Institute which was formally opened with a ceremony held at the Choral Hall in
September 1894, with displays of modern sanitary ware and equipment,
demonstrations of bacteria and addresses by important personages, including Dr
Frank Ogston. The event was well
attended. The City Council of Dunedin
was also stirred to action and held a discussion on the drainage of Dunedin and
its suburbs. The mayor moved three
resolutions. 1. That in the opinion of this Council the
present drainage system of the City of Dunedin is incomplete and
unsatisfactory. 2. That any system of drainage to be complete
and satisfactory must embrace the suburban districts of St Kilda, South
Dunedin, Caversham, Mornington, Roslyn, Maori Hill, and North-east Valley as
well as the City of Dunedin. 3. That before discussing the propriety or
otherwise of such system being carried out by and under the supervision of the
drainage board specially created for that purpose, with full powers of rating,
etc, it would be essential that reliable data be obtained as to the best system
to be provided for the disposal of sewage, and cost of same. But the mayor had been stung by Frank
Ogston’s trenchant criticisms of the then current situation. “Dr Ogston very ably introduced the subject;
yet I cannot but think his condemnation of the sanitary condition of our
streets, our drainage system and our water supply was of far too sweeping a
character and detracted largely from the merit and excellence of his
intentions”. Not for the last time,
Frank Ogston would appear to be too forthright for his own good and for the
acceptance of the case he was making.
However, at the 1896 Intercolonial Medical Congress held in Australia,
Frank Ogston was praised for “… the energy with which he had brought the
question of hygiene before the public … if he had somewhat exaggerated the
conditions in Dunedin that had produced a good effect, and Dr Ogston had been
instrumental in initiating sanitary reform”.
For the session 1896 – 1897, Dr Frank Ogston was elected
president of the Dunedin Sanitary Institute.
At the first meeting held in the Town Hall in May 1896, he took the
opportunity to sketch out the objectives and achievements of that society. The movement for the construction of public
abattoirs (see below) was one such achievement, as was the increasing agitation
for a proper drainage system for Dunedin.
A further key need for the sake of public health was the provision of a
better water supply, at the very least one which was sand-filtered. In addition to these three matters of central
concern, there were other issues which should perhaps be addressed by the
Institute, including the contamination of the foreshore with sewage, the lack
of street cleansing, the failure to enforce the law on controlling the spread
of whooping cough and other childhood diseases, the lack of effectiveness of
the filters used for the public water supply, the inspection of dairy cattle
and dairies, and insanitary houses. The
Otago Daily Times was delighted that Frank Ogston had assumed the role of
president of the Sanitary Institute, recalling the address he had given on his
arrival ten years ago on the subject of “Bacteria” and credited that occasion
with initiating a more intelligent local debate on sanitary issues but, on a
sober note, it gave the opinion that not much had been achieved in ten years
and that most of the work of the Sanitary Institute lay in the future. Sadly, it only survived until 1899.
The need for a public abattoir
When Frank Ogston arrived in Dunedin in 1886 there was no
public abattoir and this state of affairs attracted his attention on numerous
occasions, since such facilities have several important aspects to their
operation which raise concerns from a public health point of view. These included the state of health of animals
sent for slaughter, the handling of carcasses on the premises and while being
transported for sale by butchers and the disposal of arising waste. The first moves to remedy the lack of public
slaughter facilities took place in 1895 when a meeting was held in the Council
Chambers at the Town Hall to consider a proposal to raise £6,000 to construct
an abattoir under the provisions of the Abattoirs and Slaughterhouses Act,
1891. The mayor, Mr Fish, presided and
Frank Ogston was an interested attendee, along with about 120 other
citizens. There was some opposition to
the proposal on the basis of cost and this point of view received a pointed
riposte from the resident public health expert.
It was not a question of pounds, shillings and pence but a matter of
life and death. Frank Ogston was
applauded for his intervention and he then fleshed out his point of view. “He had no doubt that day by day – his
investigations proved it – meat improperly killed, the flesh of deceased
animals, the flesh of animals perhaps healthy but killed in unhealthy
surroundings, were one of the most potent factors in spreading disease. The consumption of the flesh of animals
suffering from tuberculosis was dangerous to health and a great number of
animals on all farms in all countries were tuberculous, and until there was
proper inspection of these animals there was no security that their children
and themselves would not be infected by tubercle from some diseased cattle. He knew something about slaughterhouses, and
he had seen those here, and he had never seen worse, and he did not know that
he had ever seen any so badly kept as some of those that supplied Dunedin with
food. To his mind the idea of hesitating
for a second, when by the expenditure of a few hundreds or thousands they could
improve this state of things was to put it in the mildest form, the rankest
Toryism. The mere fleabite of the
interest on a few thousand pounds was nothing.
He heartily supported the project before the meeting, and he thought the
mayor deserved the thanks of the community for bringing it forward. The very idea of anyone opposing it, when
they wanted their health improved and their meat improved, was, to his mind,
not only ridiculous but criminal”. Some
of those present thought that Frank Ogston was overstating his case, one
contributor saying, to laughter, that he had lived in Dunedin since 1861 “and
the meat had not killed him yet”. This
was another, typical Frank Ogston intervention, forthright, provocative,
insensitive to the point of view expressed by others and exposing his own
liberal political philosophy, which paid scant regard to the spending of other
people’s money. The language of Frank’s
intervention, using “opprobrious names”, irked Councillor Barclay who responded
via a letter to the editor of the Otago Daily Times in which he made
alternative proposals with lower cost and no financial risk. That was to introduce inspection at the
present slaughterhouses and, if that was deemed insufficient, to compel by
legislation the use of council-run abattoirs, otherwise butchers would simply
continue to use present, unregulated and cheaper facilities and leave the
council holding an unquantified financial risk.
However, the general feeling of the meeting had been in favour of a
council-built and financed abattoir and the proposal was tested by a public
vote, when the proposal was approved.
By the beginning of August 1895, one public abattoir was in
use and others planned (they had been completed by 1898), and the Council had
appointed Samuel Cameron, MRCVS, to be the expert inspector of these
facilities. He had previously occupied
similar roles in both Edinburgh, Scotland and Melbourne, Australia. After his arrival in Dunedin, Cameron was
quickly recruited to give a talk to the Sanitary Institute, his presentation
taking place in the October after his arrival in the Otago capital. Mr Cameron’s presentation bore the title,
“Animal diseases communicable to man”.
He dealt with a truly appalling litany of examples, some of which, like
hydatid disease, were particularly prevalent in Australasia, due to farmers and
bush hands drinking from water holes contaminated with cattle faeces. But his final example was perhaps the most
significant, tuberculosis and its transmission from cattle to humans. Tuberculosis was the greatest single cause of
death in Australasia, including 25% of those who die under the age of one
year. Frank Ogston was the first
contributor to the following discussion, it has to be said, in characteristic
Ogston style. He “thought the paper
proved the wisdom of the council appointing Mr Cameron to the position he
occupied. He hoped Mr Cameron would have
plenty to do, and that he would be encouraged in his work and not be snubbed, as
generally was the fate of officials who did their duty”. It sounded like the Ogston version of “May
you live in interesting times”. He took
issue with Cameron on the relative safety of milk from cows with localised
tubercles on the udder. Frank Ogston
thought drinking milk from affected cows to be a very dangerous practice. He also “Hoped that Mr Cameron would find
time to see that the dairies were properly looked after here, and that the
health of the cow was looked after.
Twenty or thirty deaths occurred here every year from tuberculosis, and
yet the public were so pig-headed that they would not insist on the idea of
notifying instances of tubercle”.
When the public abattoirs were officially opened at
Burnside, which lay on the south-west outskirts of Dunedin, in May 1898, Frank
Ogston was one of the prominent citizens present at the ceremony, along with
some medical students, though it is unclear if the students were there at Dr
Ogston’s bidding. The occasion was
overrun with mayors and ex-mayors, councillors and officials, all preening
themselves on their achievement, though it had been 21 years since the first
suggestion that public abattoirs should be constructed. In the speeches which accompanied the opening,
Frank Ogston got to make his own contribution and he did at least shower praise
on the council. “Dr Ogston referred to
the opening of the abattoirs as one of the most important events which had
taken place in the city, perhaps in the colony, for some time”. But true to character, Frank then went on to
rain on the council’s parade with yet another topic where significant reform
was needed, the handling of dead meat.
In addition to diseased meat being removed from human consumption
through inspection at the abattoirs, “… reform on the part of the butchers must
come sooner or later. Carcasses hanging
outside shops where they were exposed to filth blown in from the streets had to
end. “The handling of meat too must be
carefully done. In every shop everybody
who handled meat ought to have hands and clothes clean”.
The quest for disease statistics
The next public health topic to be tackled by Frank Ogston,
in August 1895, was the necessity for quantitation of disease in promoting the
sanitation of towns. At a meeting of the
Sanitary Institute in August 1895, in addition to giving the public a chance to
see new sewerage and abattoir designs, Frank Ogston gave a paper, not just on
disease notification, but also on the measures to be introduced on the back of
the statistics collected.
“It may be stated as a broad fact, which admits of no
dispute, that public sanitation is based upon a systematic study of the
diseases which occur in defined collections of individuals, and urban
communities present convenient groups for such a study. We base our estimate of the healthiness of
particular localities from various data connected with the incidence of
diseases. We may take the relationship
of the (1) birth rate to the death rate; (2) of the death rate of individuals
at certain periods of age. For instance,
we may estimate the number of children who are alive at the end of the first
year of life, the number of children who have survived to the age of five
years, as affording positive evidence of the sanitary condition of a community
and of a locality; or we may, in addition, base our conclusions upon the number
of individuals who survive what is known as the mean duration of life. But (3) what I must limit myself here to is
the information which a systematic collection and tabulation of that class of
disease known as zymotic or germ diseases furnishes, and that not only as derived
from the cases which terminate in death, but from the whole of the cases which
occur in a community. It is then from
careful notification of all cases of these zymotic diseases – smallpox,
measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, typhus fever, enteric
fever, diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera; and in addition, of tuberculosis,
phthisis, and acute diseases of the lungs, now generally recognised as
belonging to the category of infectious diseases – that we must expect to
derive such accurate knowledge of the healthiness of a locality in general, and
of each part of it in especial, as will enable us to carry out measures for
preventing the occurrence, for checking the spread, and for making
impossible the recurrence of waves of
such filth diseases in our towns. It is
true that our Public Health Acts provide the machinery for such a measure, and
that it is the duty of every medical practitioner to notify to the Public
Health Committee the occurrence of every case of zymotic disease he may come in
contact with professionally, and, what is generally ignored, it is the duty
also of every head of household to furnish to the same body that information;
but in the majority of cases there the matter rests, except in cases of fever,
where a perfunctory visit from the inspector of nuisances, whose time is too
much taken up with other duties to allow him to do much more than order a
cleaning of gutters and the like – a mere temporary measure. What we want and what is now established
throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, is a regular and carefully
kept record of all cases noted, a street list, and map of the town and suburbs,
so that all cases of disease shall be marked against their exact localities,
till at the end of the year, two years or five years, the exact localities of
such diseases as diphtheria, typhoid fever or consumption, and perhaps also
rheumatic fever and diarrhoea, may be definitely fixed, and the whole town
mapped out into localities representing various grades of sanitary perfection
and imperfection, and the various diseases or types of diseases which each
portion breeds or encourages. From this
we should then proceed to study the exact causes which produce the tendency to
the occurrence of disease in each particular locality – whether from general
causes, as sub-soil dampness; from impurities of neighbourhood or site of
dwellings; from personal neglect or filthiness; from overcrowding of house or
locality, etc. Then, having thus gained
exact knowledge of the causes of the disease, we should set the machinery which
our public health laws provide in abundance into action, and drain damp
localities, provide against the access of dampness to our houses by raising
them, underventillating, etc; cleanse and cause to be kept clean the
surroundings of houses and their annexes; prevent overcrowding of localities
and houses, and the building of houses too near to each other, and such
like. You may urge that all this will
cost money, but it has been shown time and again that disease is a far greater
waste of money than would be necessary for its prevention; and we need not
expect Utopia all at once, but must work by little and little; and surely a
life or two or the expense and anxiety of a four to six weeks’ illness, like
typhoid fever, saved in a household or two every year is worth a few
pounds. Besides, everything must have a
beginning, and the beginning means only a little money, though that little
mounts up to great by the process of accretion”.
Frank Ogston then drew on some statistics which, on the
face of it, supported his contentions about the value of making hygiene changes
but which necessarily lacked any estimate of the probability of such
differences being due to sampling error alone.
It is likely that these small samples only provided weak evidence of
benefit. At the time,1895, modern
statistical analysis had not been invented.
It would appear after a decade or two when the work of Francis Galton,
Karl Pearson and Sir Ronald Fisher would provide the underlying theoretic work
necessary for its derivation. Frank saw
the role of the Sanitary Institute very clearly. “We as an Association have a clear duty in
this matter as self-constituted guardians of the public health of this town
…”.
The public water supply
The Otago branch of the British Medical Association was
another body which took a strong interest in sanitary matters and in May 1898
it took the opportunity presented by the pending completion of the public
abattoir programme to praise the Dunedin Town Council on its achievement but
also to raise concerns about another issue, the public water supply. This was done by way of a letter, signed by
Frank Ogston and two others, using, in modern parlance, the “sandwich
technique” (say something nice, say something critical, say something nice). “We recognise that the City Corporation
possesses as fine a water-catching area as any city need have – especially the
north-eastern watershed – but we wish to point out to you that the country used
as a water catching area for the present supply, and all that through which the
races pass, is used more or less for grazing purposes , and is largely overrun
with dogs and other animals, while all along the race there is surface leakage
into it from the country immediately above, which in some parts forms the
resting place for those animals that die from disease or accident”. The softer tones of this letter led to it
meeting with the approval of the council and the missive being referred to the
Water Committee for consideration. At
last, it seemed that some progress was being made in persuading the local
council to act on sanitary matters. Was
the letter composed by one of Frank Ogston’s co-signatories? It seemed to differ from Frank’s usual blunt
style.
The campaign against tuberculosis
The Intercolonial Medical Congress was held in 1896, when a
sub-committee was established with representation from all the Australian
colonies and from New Zealand, Frank Ogston being one of the two non-Australian
members, to take action to deal more effectively with tuberculosis. There were two measures the sub-committee was
charged with producing, “Printed slips of advice, suitable for general use by
medical men in dealing with cases of phthisis” and “Resolutions to be brought
under the notice of the Governments of the different colonies, having as their
objective the general preventative measures deemed necessary for the prevention
of the spread of tubercular disease”.
Three years later, Frank Ogston was a member of a deputation from the
Otago Medical Association which waited upon the Dunedin City Council to present
a set of leaflets with advice on the prevention of tubercular disease. The mayor thanked the deputation and assured
them that the council would carry out their suggestion. It should be born in mind that Frank Ogston’s
first wife, Charlotte, had died of pulmonary tuberculosis, aged only 29. No wonder that he was so keen to combat this
debilitating condition, or that, on occasion, his views on this human scourge
were so trenchant.
The use and abuse of alcohol
At the Intercolonial Medical Congress held in 1896, Frank
Ogston expressed strong views on a quite different topic, the use and abuse of
alcohol. “Dr Ogston (Dunedin) could not
agree with Dr Chapple’s (another New Zealand doctor who presented a paper
opposing alcohol consumption) statements with regard to the comparison
between the abuse of alcohol and its moderate use. Alcohol was useful in small doses and harmful
in big doses, but the same argument might be made to tell against tea. In thirteen years’ practice at Home, he had
seen the abuse of tea and had seen more harm produced by it amongst women of
the working classes than was done by it amongst men of the working
classes. Alcohol was only harmful in
abuse; in strict use it was not harmful.
Stimulants were required to promote the digestion of food, and alcohol
was not the only stimulant in use – mustard, pepper and sauces were all
artificial stimulants which were similarly used. To certain temperaments, strict moderation
was impossible, but the persons of such temperaments were weak persons who
needed restraint in other respects. The
majority were not, however, so weakly; and to them, he maintained, strict
moderation was not impossible”. The
Otago Daily times subsequently published some verses wittily summarising the
views of the main participants in the debate on alcohol consumption. The contributions relating to Dr Chapple and
Dr Ogston are reproduced here.
Dr
Chapple
For the
sake of professional honour,
For the
sake of our fellowmen cursed
With a
liking for beer and for whisky,
As a
means of assuaging their thirst,
Let us
sweep away all our delusions
And no
longer be blind leading blind.
Having
studied the subject, I’ll tell you
Just a
few of the evils I find.
You’ll
develop some form of neuritis,
And
become prematurely infirm;
You’ll
suffer from chronic gastritis,
You’ll
contract the tubercular germ;
You’ll
find your liver’s cirrhotic;
In
short, it is perfectly clear
Your
conduct is quite idiotic,
If you
drink either whisky or beer
Dr Ogston
When
I’m spending a week in the country,
And get
overdone mutton to chew,
I want
something to aid my digestion,
Now
sauces and mustard won’t do;
So I
lead off with whisky and bitters,
And
then I prescribe without fear,
To
accompany luncheon and dinner,
In each
case a bottle of beer.
The fight against bubonic plague
The leave of
absence of Frank Ogston from Dunedin between April and November 1900, as it
turned out, was not an opportune time for the city’s leading public health
expert to be unavailable for consultation.
Bubonic plague is caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis, and
it infects both humans and other mammals, such as rats. In humans it is often fatal, if
untreated. This disease, which is
usually passed from infected animals to humans by fleas, is estimated to have
killed more than 25 million people in Europe during the Middle Ages. No case of bubonic plague had been recorded
in Australasia until mid-January 1900 when it is thought the disease made its
entry via Sydney Central Wharf, almost certainly due to infected rats escaping
from a ship docked there. The outbreak
caused panic in this Australian city due to the past reputation of the
condition and the absence of any effective treatment. This state of near hysteria spread to New
Zealand, too.
Rat catchers in Sydney 1900
Frank Ogston
was able to make several prominent contributions to the preparedness of Dunedin
for the possibility of an outbreak of the plague before his departure for
Europe at the beginning of April 1900.
In early March, he wrote to the Dunedin City Council “calling attention
to the urgent necessity of having the sewers seen to, the foreshore cleansed,
and the sanitation of the city generally improved, as a means of protection
against the bubonic plague”. His letter,
instead of being dismissed, was referred to the General Committee for
consideration. Frank Ogston also wrote
to the editor of the Otago Daily Times with his own checklist of urgent
actions. Many of these items can hardly
have been news to the paper’s readers.
Frank had been advocating such actions almost since his arrival in the
colony. “Sir – The terror of the plague
is upon us, and what are we doing? What
our fathers did 40 to 50 years ago – putting ships into quarantine, an utterly
useless and out of date measure.
Inspection at the port of departure (where plague exists) and at the
port of entry in the colony is what we want, as being the means which has time
after time prevented the entrance of smallpox and cholera into Great Britain
when these diseases were raging in Hamburg and other mercantile towns of the
Continent in close communication with the principal English and Scotch
seaports. Then the Colonial Secretary
sends a circular to members of the medical profession, calling their attention
to the clause of the Public Health Act with reference to the notification of
infectious disease and the penal clauses involved by failure to notify; but he
has omitted to call the attention of the general public (or he was ignorant of
it) to a similar clause in the amended act of 1880, which lays upon every head
of household a similar duty of notification, under penalty for omission. Attention called to this clause in the public
papers would have a good effect. Again,
what do we find? Suggestions at a
meeting in Christchurch, to send an expert to Sydney to study the disease,
which may be non-existent when he gets there, at the public expense. The recent medical journals will furnish all
the information required; and where in this colony are we to find a man whom we
could regard as an expert for such a purpose?
Let us do as is done at Home – cleanse our towns, abolish nuisances, and
insist generally upon the strictest attention to the removal of filth of all
sorts from our streets, back yards, foreshores, and reserves, and especially
from our insanitary privies; let us require the frequent cleansing of stables
and cowsheds; let all house and street drains be carefully examined and put
into a healthy condition, without regard to private interests; and we may await
the possible advent of the plague without fear.
A medical officer of health is hardly necessary, our present sanitary
staff, a little strengthened, is sufficient for the work. – I am, etc, Frank
Ogston, MD, Formerly Depute Medical Officer of Health, City of Aberdeen”.
A few days
after his letter was published in the Otago Daily Times, Frank Ogston attended
a meeting at the Town Hall to discuss preparations to thwart the plague and
again made his views known. Two items
were briefly reported in the Evening Star, and thus perhaps lacked
context. Firstly, his lack of faith in
the use of disinfectants for combatting the feared bacteria, as this only
exchanged one nasty smell for another and engendered a false sense of
security. Secondly, his view that
emphasis should be placed on removing the garbage on which rats fed, rather
than killing the marauding rodents. A
further meeting, this time of the Otago branch of the BMA with the Council,
provided the intrepid Frank with another platform. His message was essentially the same; clean
up the town as quickly as possible.
Abolish faulty closets, clear back yards, prohibit the keeping of
chickens in the city, inspect butchers’, milk and provision shops and clear
seaweed from the foreshore. This last
item was surely an example of Ogston’s over-zealous approach, which seemed to
equate nasty smells with danger. The
Evening Star suggested that these proposed actions should be seen as permanent
and not just as a suitable response when an immediate danger threatened. Frank Ogston also gave the view that, with
summer almost over and the heat receding, the town probably had six months to
get its act together before the plague danger returned. “The peril will probably be a blessing in
disguise, and nothing short of visible peril seems able to wake the people, and
even the authorities, from their apathy in regard to sanitary matters. Most of the steps and precautions ought to
have been taken long ago, and goodness knows how much longer they would have
been delayed but for the appearance of the present danger”. The pressure of the emergency led to better
cooperation between the various responsible parties in Dunedin and after
consulting Drs Ogston and Macdonald, the Mayor instructed the corporation
gardener to dig a deep trench in the Oval, the central Dunedin sports ground,
which would be gradually filled by street sweepings which had previously been
deposited on the foreshore. As the
trench was progressively filled it would be covered by soil and replanted.
In the febrile
atmosphere of Dunedin in mid-March 1900, it did not take long for finger
pointing to start in view of the council’s past record of inaction on the
sewerage system and other matters, and it was not just Frank Ogston making a
digital gesture. An editorial piece in
the Tuapeka Times, after offering some gratuitous insults to the Boers and the
Chinese, asked the pertinent questions, “Why hasn’t Dunedin a proper, decent,
civilised drainage system? Why aren’t
these pollutions that everyone is now crying about cleaned out in normal
times? Why wait for a plague scare to
wake us up? In fact, one might ask
questions for ever”. It also singled out
Frank Ogston as a shining beacon. “Dr
Ogston has warned, and warned, and warned us, but he has been as a clean man
standing in a muck heap. No one heeded
him and I am pessimistic enough to say that his advice to the City Council will
fall equally as flat”. The Evening Star
also railed against the Council. “In
Dunedin we possessed one of the three medical schools in Australasia, and it
has always been a matter of some soreness that, while we had in Dr Ogston, the
lecturer at the medical school, a man specially chosen for teaching on public
health and medical jurisprudence, the City Council steadfastly refused to take
advantage of his presence amongst us”.
The Otago Daily Times was not far behind in expanding on the Evening
Star’s critique. “Our city is the more
to blame because it is the seat of one of the three medical schools in
Australasia, and for 14 years Dr Ogston has been lecturing to our students on
the subject – public health. And yet the
Town Council has never sought his advice or taken advantage of his special
skill. I know they have asked him to
advise them occasionally on special matters, but they might have had a properly
qualified health officer for years, and they refused to have him”.
Healthy
homes
Once back home
in Dunedin after his visit to Great Britain, Frank Ogston resumed his mission
to educate the public in community health matters. In May 1901, he gave a lecture at the Dunedin
YWCA on the subject of “How to make a home healthy”. Ideally the ground underneath and around new
houses should be covered with asphalt to prevent damp and there should be
effective ventilation under all floors.
The inside should have a good supply of pure air and be free from
bacteria-breeding dust. The building
should have a good supply of clean water and sewerage should be disposed of in
an acceptable manner. However, he had to
admit that these measures had their effectiveness limited by the poor quality
of public cleansing in Dunedin. As an
example, he gave the High Street in front of his own house which, to his
knowledge had not been cleaned for the last 15 years.
Much later, in
November 1911, Frank Ogston gave a talk in the YMCA Assembly Hall, Dunedin,
returning to the subject of “Health in the Home”. It was remarkably wide ranging in its scope
and revealed much about Frank’s thinking beyond the strict confines of his
acknowledged area of expertise. The
fundamentals were not unexpected. For a
home to be healthy it must be run on a healthy basis. The inmates must be cleanly and the
surroundings hygienic. He stressed
training in the art of housekeeping for girls and its importance in avoiding
domestic strife. “The speaker also
referred, en passant, to the Eugenics Society. It was quite possible for them to carry their
ideas to extremes, but they had the interests of the race at heart, and he was
satisfied that when they settled down to bedrock they would do good work”. (This society had been founded in London in
1907 under the influence of the polymath, Francis Galton, and was initially
known as the Eugenics Educational Society).
Other prescriptions for a happy, healthy life included, that young men,
on marrying, should be compelled to insure their lives and be compelled to show
that they were able to found a home debt-free.
He also cautioned against buying furniture on credit, which caused
laughter. “The girl should be able to
cook and to handle money to best advantage, manage children properly and have a
knowledge of the hundred-and-one little things which go to make a home happy,
healthy and inviting”. Turning from the
household to the house, Frank Ogston said a house should preferably be built on
a rise rather than at the foot of a hill and should have good air circulation
underneath its structure. Drains and
sinks should be attended to periodically and if rats were seen there was
probably a drainage defect present. In
one sense, he claimed, rats were our friends because they gave early warning of
problems. “The essentials of a healthy
home were roominess, sunshine, situation, management, fresh air and, most
important of all, cleanliness”. It
seemed that on almost all topics, Frank Ogston had a fixed view and a
prescriptive approach to imparting his beliefs to others.
Public
health legislation
The first public health legislation in New Zealand was the
Public Health Act of 1872 under which a Central Board of Health was established
in each province and each local authority could assume the functions of a local
Board of Health. However, most local
authorities remained inactive and little progress was made. In 1876 provincial governments were abolished
in the colony and a new Public Health Act established a Central Board of Health
for the whole of New Zealand, which survived until 1900. This Central Board was mainly inactive,
evinced little belief in leadership on public health matters and no local
authority immediately appointed a medically qualified officer of health. Thus, local public health initiatives were
largely absent up to the turn of the century, when worries about bubonic plague
(the first case was identified in Auckland in June 1900) forced change and a
new Public Health Act reached the statute book the following year. A Department of Public Health was created for
the whole country to be staffed with medically qualified personnel, who were
required to give up private practice and become full-time Government
employees. Dr James M Mason was
recruited as the first Chief Health Officer, and he was largely responsible for
drafting the new Public Health Act of 1900.
At the beginning of August 1901, Francis Ogston was appointed health
officer for Otago and Southland, though he retained his role as Lecturer in
Public Health at Otago University.
So, after so many years of the Dunedin Council ignoring Frank Ogston’s
strictures, that body was now required to take his pronouncements very
seriously. Frank was able, through the
new legislation, to overcome his previous reservations about taking on the role
of health officer. What could possibly
go wrong?
Frank Ogston becomes the Health Officer for Otago and
Southland
One immediate consequence of this appointment was that
Frank also acquired another, quite different obligation. All post-mortem examinations ordered by the
coroner were to become his responsibility.
On the other hand, a task that Frank had to relinquish was as medical
advisor to the Independent Order of Rechabites, a fraternal organisation which
was opposed to the consumption of alcohol.
Dr Frank Ogston, Health Officer for Otago and Southland, accompanied by
Inspector Donaldson of the City of Dunedin, immediately started to exercise his
powers. The pair paid a surprise visit
to various Dunedin fruit warehouses on 3 August 1901. “As a result of their inspection, they have
decided that in future all bad fruit will be dealt with in such form that it
will not go into consumption”. Frank
Ogston also started a public information campaign to remind the population at
large, many members of which, were blissfully unaware of their obligations for
reporting the occurrence of infectious disease.
The following announcement appeared in the Evening Star. “Government Notices. E.R.
Department of Public Health, Dunedin, 17th October 1901. Notification of Infectious diseases. To medical men, chemists and
householders. It is the duty of doctors
and druggists to notify to me all cases of infectious disease which they are
called upon to treat. If they fail to do
so they are liable to a penalty not exceeding £10. The householder must also give notice of such
disease as soon as he is aware of its nature, under a penalty not exceeding
£5. The diseases thus notifiable are: Typhus
fever, Enteric (Typhoid) fever, Scarlet fever, Smallpox, Diphtheria, Blood
poisoning, Plague, Tuberculosis (Consumption) and Measles (True and
German). As one of these – namely,
Measles – has attained such proportions as to necessitate the closure of one of
the public schools, without any notification having been made to me, my duty
under the Public Health Act, may compel me to take action to enforce the
penalty. FRANK OGSTON, District Health
Officer”. Frank Ogston was clearly
determined to enforce the law, to the letter, if necessary. He would not tolerate the casual disregard
for legislation that had been the practice in the recent past. Such an abrupt change was likely to ruffle
the feathers of local politicians and others in this outpost of empire, but if
such a thought ever crossed Frank’s mind, it did not change his resolve.
The newly appointed District Health Officer was provided
with an office within the Court building by April of the following year but, in
the meantime, he did not let up in his urgent approach to his new job, the
scope of which was almost horizon wide.
Even before the end of October 1901, the Otago Daily Times noted, with
gentle irony, that, “Those burgesses in the South Dunedin Borough who exhibit a
love of farming pursuits by keeping a cow are to receive a friendly visit today
from Dr Ogston, representing the Public Health Department. Dr Ogston has been appointed to inspect all
the cow-byres within the district”.
Another body that Frank Ogston’s gimlet eye fell upon was the Dunedin
Harbour Board. He made a formal
complaint about the state of two of the sites falling within the Board’s
purview, the Frederick Street refuse tip and the depot at Lake Logan.
Infectious disease was a constant concern for Frank Ogston,
from diseases endemic in the population, such as tuberculosis, to essentially
childhood ailments which flared up from time to time, such as measles, to the
possible introduction of new diseases by importation from abroad, such as
bubonic plague. With regard to the
latter category, although the plague reached New Zealand, it was never a serious
threat to the population. Unexpectedly,
the imported disease which did cause some concern in Otago in 1901 was the
discovery of a case of leprosy. This
disease is caused by one of two species of the bacterial genus, Mycobacterium,
leprae and lepromatosis.
It usually develops slowly over a number of years and is only weakly
contagious. The single case discovered
in Otago occurred near Palmerston, 30 miles north of Dunedin. The victim was an ethnic Chinese man. Immigration from China to New Zealand first
occurred in the 1860s when Dunedin Chamber of Commerce encouraged Chinese
immigration to replace western gold rush migrants who had departed Otago for
the Australian gold rush. It fell to
Frank Ogston to ensure that any risk of transmission was contained. He wrote to the editor of the Otago Witness
to reassure the general population that the disease was not contagious in the
early stages, that the victim was being looked after apart from his neighbours
and that there was no reason for alarm.
Many further examples of Frank Ogston’s involvement with
public health issues in Otago and Southland reached the pages of New Zealand
newspapers, far too many to deal with individually and only a sample will
follow, grouped under general headings.
He had a great geographical area to cover but made a plan to tour all
areas under his control over a period of several months during 1902. In July of that year, when Dr Ogston was
interviewed by a reporter from the Evening Star, it became clear that after a
bruising few months doing battle with councillors, officials, householders and
business owners, Frank Ogston was learning to be more discrete and nuanced in
his application of the law and the exercise of his powers, though always
prepared to take a formal approach when the circumstances demanded urgent
compliance. He had recently visited
Balclutha in South Otago and found “all sorts of insanitary practices in
operation”. “The needed remedies were
pointed out, and there is reason to believe that these will be applied without
forcing the department to more vigorous measures. Much of Dr Ogston’s work is necessarily
departmental and of a semi-private character and he is pleased when he is able
to effect reforms in a quiet way”. “… if
from miserliness or laziness anyone stands in the way and endangers the public
health there will be no hesitation about putting the penal clauses of the
Health Act into force”.
Drainage.
Drainage systems throughout Frank Ogston’s bailiwick were almost
uniformly poorly designed and constructed, often employing inferior materials,
pipes without flanges (which leaked), with sections running uphill and bad, or
no processing of the effluent at the discharge points. All of these defects were easy enough to
diagnose and to prescribe solutions but, almost inevitably, the system then
broke down. The problem with the
implementation of health officer solutions proposed under the 1900 Public
Health Act proved not to be due to the intent of the legislation, or its
drafting, but to the reluctance or financial inability of local authorities to
fund the required investment. Many
districts were too small and had insufficiently robust economies to shoulder
the burden of public investment. In December
1901, Frank Ogston produced a report on the drainage of Gore, Southland, about
80 miles west of Dunedin, which identified a range of problems which needed to
be put in order. He had seen a plan
which proposed solutions with which he agreed but he also wanted to see a
proper water supply connected to it to make it work efficiently. Generally, Frank Ogston found that the
country districts were in a poor condition, for example, Arrowtown did not even
have a drainage system and Queenstown was little better. Slowly perhaps, but progress was being made
in improving the drainage systems of the southern half of the South
Island. In mid-1902, a new septic tank
was installed at the Dunedin hospital, the plans having been approved by Frank
Ogston. This was the type of bacterial
degradation system favoured by the Health Officer, as a result of his recent
sojourn in Great Britain. Frank Ogston
made a visit to Invercargill during May 1904 and found that a small creek running
through the middle of the town was choked with rubbish and, in addition,
carried sewage. In a letter to the
Council he urged that the creek be cleaned up and described the town generally
as “dirty”, which incensed some of the local representatives. However, a local citizen wrote to the Southland
Times criticising the Council and its priorities. In the writer’s opinion, the town was dirty
and even Frank Ogston’s use of the adjective was too mild, it was actually
“filthy”. The town lacked adequate local
by-laws to deal with drainage and they thought nothing of spending £20,000 on a
theatre at a time when they did not possess a proper drainage system. In 1907, Frank Ogston took action against a
boarding housekeeper to require her to improve her drains. She failed to do so, which led Frank Ogston
to instruct a plumber to do the work.
However, the firm of plumbers was then unable to recover its charges
from the property’s proprietor and, in frustration the firm sought the
authority of the court by taking action against both the keeper and against
Frank Ogston, in both his official and his personal capacities. The case was lost but there was no award of
costs against the pursuer because Frank Ogston made no application for them. This settled the validity of Frank Ogston’s
position as the official charged with applying the law relating to public
health in his area of responsibility. He
could not be held responsible for the financial consequences of a valid
decision that he had taken.
Water supply. In
1903, Frank Ogston, who had been railing against the quality of Dunediun’s
water supply for some years, sent a sample of tap water to Dr Black for
analysis. His report concluded, “I
consider this water utterly unfit for use for household purposes”. In consequence the Health Officer pressed upon
the City Council the need for a proper system of filtration. Flax dressing, the process by which fibres
are extracted from flax stems was a process which required large amounts of
water and thus also generated voluminous wastewater, in addition to solid plant
refuse. In early 1907, Frank Ogston
received a complaint from Bruce County, Southland, that the smell from decaying
material at the flax mill at Dunn’s Bridge was so bad that neighbouring houses
could not open their windows on warm days for that reason. A further complaint was received concerning a
second flax mill at Berwick, where waste water was being allowed to pollute a
creek used for watering cattle and sometimes also for domestic purposes. Frank’s standard response was to write to
Bruce County Council to inform that body that this public nuisance must
cease. However, the County Engineer
pointed out that all flax mills returned wastewater to water courses and the
implication of Dr Ogston’s letter was that all flax mills would have to cease
work. Councillors, as usual, worked
themselves into a lather and accused Ogston of trying to wipe out the whole
flax industry of Bruce County. Their
solution was to go over Frank Ogston’s head and appeal to his boss, Dr
Mason. His response was to ask Frank
Ogston for a report on the matter, but Frank then wrote a second letter to the
Council informing them that he understood the pollution would soon cease and
that he was not proposing to take further action. Clearly Frank’s intervention had produced some
remediation to stop the pollution.
Abattoirs. The
provision of public abattoirs with inspection had proved to be very successful
in Dunedin, so Frank Ogston could point to model arrangements when providing
advice on animal killing facilities in other towns. In December 1901 he received a complaint
about the abattoirs in Invercargill, the largest town in Southland. In consequence Frank made an unannounced
visit to the facilities but found the conduct of the abattoirs themselves to be
entirely in order. However, the handling
of the arising waste was not acceptable, especially the disposal of bloody
water which needed to be pre-treated to remove albumen and fats, the drains
were leaky and accommodated a substantial rat population (a worry in plague threatened
times) and the spreading of putrefying offal on paddocks as a means of disposal
was utterly appalling.
Dilapidated housing. By September 1904, Frank Ogston, aided by
Inspector Donaldson, was conducting a campaign against run down property in
Dunedin. “… on Tuesday (they) visited
and condemned a cottage in Forth Street which was found in a dirty and
tumble-down condition, constituting, with the small and very dirty piece of
ground on which it is situated, a menace to the public health”. By 1905, Frank Ogston had turned his
attention to Invercargill. He condemned
a building there and required its removal.
But the council disagreed with his assessment and declined to follow his
instruction on the grounds that it was fit for habitation and to remove it
would be an injustice to the owner.
Frank Ogston stuck to his guns and again requested, for the last time,
the Council to attend to his instructions, but the Council too was immovable. The Invercargill councillors were incensed at
the tone and mode of Frank Ogston’s communication, claiming that Dr Ogston
should have sought an interview with the Mayor and Council to explain, in
person, the reasons for his instruction.
The Council then took legal advice on whether Frank Ogston had exceeded
his competence under the Act. The advice
was that he had actually gone beyond his authority. This stiffened their resistance and they
poured further condemnation on the Health Officer, claiming he did not
understand the laws he was charged with administering. One small note of caution was expressed, that
the Council’s own inspector had found the house unfit for habitation but felt
that an alternative to demolition would be to rectify its faults, especially to
the drainage. Frank Ogston was then
interviewed on the stand-off with Invercargill Borough Council. After all, this was the kind of story that
sold newspapers. The building had been
condemned on inspection by Mr Cameron, the sanitary inspector, the Borough
Council had been notified three times that the building should be demolished
and the authority on which he was acting was clear – The Public Health Act
Amendment Act 1903. However, Frank
admitted that “there the matter rests for the present”, suggesting that it may
no longer have been in his hands.
At the end of December 1905, “An Expert” placed an article
in the Southland Times dealing with the dispute. He or she did not spare the town councillors
of Invercargill. “Our town councillors
have again come into conflict with the Government Health authorities, and they
will continue to do so until they alter their present habit of ignoring the
principles of sanitation. Invercargill
is the only town in New Zealand without sanitation laws”. This state of affairs left the public in
ignorance of how they should act in sanitary matters. The result had been that “… the Health
authorities, through Dr Ogston had taken the matter out of the Council’s hand
entirely and insisted on a set of sanitary laws of their own being put into
practice without further delay. Some of
our city fathers talked very big at the last meeting, but they only displayed
their ignorance, and they will wake up one of these days to find that the
control of the drains and sewers is no longer in their own hands. What credit is there in having the finest
Theatre in the colony when we also have claim to the worst drains?” He/she went on in similar vein. “What occurred in regard to the Leet Street
house affords an indication of how sanitary affairs are managed in this
town. According to the report,
Councillor Ott acknowledged that the Council’s own Inspector reported adversely
on the drain, etc and the improvements suggested had not been effected. … The
Mayor’s action in writing to the Minister of Health is to say the least in very
bad taste. The idea of complaining of an
officer, who was only doing his duty in studying the health of the people
concerned and of the whole community is absurd.
It is much to be regretted that a self-appointed committee, none of whom
have more than the slightest knowledge of sanitation, should set their opinion
up against a doctor of public health…”.
The dispute was finally settled at a meeting, held in
January 1906, between Dr Valentine of the Health Department and members of
Invercargill Borough Council, at Valentine’s request. Mr K Cameron, the Health Inspector for the
district was also present but not Frank Ogston, the reason for his absence
being unclear, but it emerged that the Mayor had been in contact with Sir
Joseph Ward, the then prime minister of the colony. It seems likely that Frank Ogston was
deliberately excluded from the meeting and Dr Valentine, a known diplomat, sent
to effect a negotiated solution. “Dr
Valentine said he was glad of the opportunity of a personal interview. He had always found that an interview was
more satisfactory than correspondence”.
This was an implied criticism of Frank Ogston’s modus operandi. “Having referred to the desirableness of the
department and local bodies working harmoniously, Dr Valentine said he was
quite satisfied that Dr Ogston and Mr Cameron were fully justified in
condemning the building. It was
undoubtedly insanitary, and in addition it had an evil reputation as a harbour
of infectious diseases, there having been cases of diphtheria, scarlet fever
and tuberculosis in it. The department
had a duty to discharge, and its officer would not have been doing their duty
if they had not condemned the building.
He would suggest that the way to look at the matter was to ask whether
councillors would take their wives and families to live in the building. He might say that the department had no
intention of going to law with the Council.
He hoped that any differences that might arise between the department
and local bodies would be settled amicably”.
Then a clever middle way was crafted to let both sides withdraw with
dignity. The Health Department would
issue a requisition to the owner of the house requiring the following repairs
and modifications to be carried out as an alternative to demolition. Floor to be raised, decayed piles and roof
timbers to be replaced with sound, window sashes to be properly hung to open
top and bottom, drainage to be attended to, paper and scrim to be renewed and
the whole to be thoroughly disinfected.
The decision on which option to take was left to the owner, thus
removing the Council from any further involvement. The list of repairs and modifications was so
extensive that it is likely that the owner, on financial grounds, would have
chosen the option of taking the building down.
The law had been upheld, Frank Ogston’s decision had been vindicated,
his lack of interpersonal skills had been circumvented, the Council had been
helped down from its high horse and the offensive aspects of the building had
been eliminated.
In 1907, Frank Ogston’s Health Department was criticised by
the Dunedin coroner during an inquest held into the death of a child. “The coroner stated that the attention of the
Health Department should be called to the damp and unhealthy condition of the house
where the child lived, and further stated that it was a common thing to have
houses condemned, but nothing further heard about them perhaps for a year or
two afterwards”. Frank took great
exception to these remarks, since the house where the child died had been
inspected and was not found to be damp and, further, it had sufficient
ventilation. “As far as I am aware there
are no grounds for the remarks of the coroner.
When a number of houses are condemned, it is not considered judicious or
reasonable to proceed with an immediate and wholesale eviction of tenants until
some other provision is made for them.
The tenants are given an opportunity of finding another place of
residence, but once a house is condemned demolition follows”. The same year another example occurred of
Frank Ogston’s sensitivity to criticism.
An inquest on a child, living in overcrowded circumstances, who also
died in Dunedin concluded that the cause of his demise was diphtheria, the jury
adding a critical rider to the effect that the Health authorities had done
nothing to isolate this case. Frank was
quick to point out that his department was not involved, was not responsible
and that no blame could be attached to it.
He had ordered the hospital authorities to provide for the case, as was
its responsibility in law, “but they took no steps in the matter”. A long editorial in the Otago Daily Times
discussed the whole case and came to the conclusion that because the Hospital
Board was in the habit of routinely ignoring its legal obligations, that put an
obligation on the Health Department, ie. Frank Ogston, to take action himself,
even though the Hospital Board had not told him that it was taking no
action. This conclusion appeared to be a
bit one-sided and downplayed the fact that the Dunedin authorities had for
years failed to provide an isolation hospital, as it was legally obliged to do
(but with no penalty for not complying), which would have provided the means by
which the Hospital Board could deal with the case. Frank Ogston must have felt that the Health
Department was again being treated as an Aunt Sally at which anyone could take
a shot. The role of his department, as
he frequently reiterated, was not to treat disease but to prevent transmission
of infections.
Disinfection of houses. The Public Health Act laid a responsibility
upon local authorities to disinfect the houses of those who had suffered a
serious infectious disease, but this obligation was often ignored. In late 1905, there was a severe outbreak of
scarlet fever in Fairfax, near Invercargill.
Frank Ogston got into a spat with Bruce County Council when he
instructed that body to have the house of Mrs James Carruthers, whose children
had been attacked by scarlet fever, disinfected. The county clerk declined to take action
until he was informed who would indemnify any workman engaged to do the work, if
he himself should become ill. Frank
Ogston then intervened by sending his own inspector to perform the task at the
expense of the county, “… disinfection of the house brooks no delay”. The county was naturally miffed and did not
do the inspector the courtesy of sending a cab to the station to collect
him. Dr Ogston then wrote again to the
County emphasising their obligations and threatening penalties if they did not
comply. Ogston and Inspector Gladstone
subsequently appeared at a meeting of Bruce County Council and clarified all
the issues. The Health Department’s
function was to see that the requirements of the Health Act were carried out,
the obligation of the local authority was to carry out those instructions. It was not the role of the Health Department
to carry out a cleansing service. The
liability for the health of any contractor lay with the local authority. The outcome was an agreement by the Bruce
County Council to seek the cooperation of adjacent counties in appointing a man
to carry out disinfection work collectively.
By late 1906, Frank Ogston could report that most local authorities were
now cooperating in the disinfection of houses and had employed a person
specifically to take on this task.
Food handling. In
June 1902 two separate butchers were charged by Frank Ogston with offering meat
for sale which was unfit for human consumption and separately with offering
meat for sale which had not been killed in a licenced abattoir. During 1903 – 1904, Frank Ogston made a
particular point of inspecting food handling in such places as butchers’ and
bakers’ shops and at auction marts, and many infractions uncovered and
rectification sought or imposed. But he
could also report that, “As a rule the butchers’ and bakers’ shops in the
country were found to be clean and well-kept, and in the towns a great
improvement is already noticeable. Over
fish shops too a strict supervision has been exercised and these are now kept
much cleaner than formerly”. When foods
were found which were condemned for human consumption, the process was done
“quietly” and the offending materials sent to the gasworks to be burned, thus
saving the vendor from a negative impact on his trade. In 1905, Frank Ogston met with the traffic
manager of the railway to talk about the carriage of pig carcasses. Frank suggested that instead of laying the
carcasses on the floors of the wagons, they be hung on rails. He also wanted the agents using the service
to cover the carcasses where possible.
In 1906, Frank Ogston appealed to the Master Bakers’ Association “not to
receive into their shops, or sell, bread that had once been delivered or retained
in any private house”.
Oyster storage.
During a tour of Southland early in 1903, Frank Ogston found that
Oysters were being stored under the wharf at Bluff by fishermen. This he found unacceptable. Oysters, being filter-feeders would retain
sewerage bacteria present in the water and transfer them to anyone consuming
the molluscs. Ogston asked the mayor to
find an alternative storage site. A year
later the authorities in Bluff “had not seen fit to move in the matter” so
Frank issued a formal notice to Bluff Harbour Board to cancel at once the
leases to the present oyster storage platforms.
However, nothing happened and the storage platforms under the wharf were
still in use in 1909. Then, at the end
of February of that year, Frank Ogston with Mr Cameron the local inspector, met
with the oyster merchants at Bluff and agree a new storage site. It had taken six years to make this advance.
Whisky and beer dispensing. In 1904, Frank Ogston carried out an
investigation into the possibility of contaminants being present in whisky and
beer available in Dunedin, after a number of complaints. Nothing worse than alcohol was discovered in
the whisky samples tested but several beer sources were contaminated with lead,
this toxic heavy metal being mobilised from the lead pipes used in bars to
connect the barrels with the pumps.
Frank Ogston reached an informal remedy with the landlords concerned. They were to empty the beer from the pipes
each morning, throw the liquid away and wash out the pipes before dispensing to
customers.
Rubbish handling. Dr
Mason’s tour of inspection at Dunedin in January 1902 also took in the
Woodhaugh Rubbish Depot but he found its processes to be satisfactory as an interim
measure, prior to the acquisition of a proper destructor. This issue of a rubbish destructor, as was in
use in Wellington, emerged again a month later when precautions against the
plague were under active discussion. In
1903, while travelling home from the north, Frank Ogston called at Christchurch
to examine that town’s rubbish destructor.
He found it working well. “It is
well isolated and the smell about it is not more than one finds in many stable
yards…”.
Public baths. A
complaint was received from the Albany Street Committee, Dunedin, that the Lake
Logan Baths were insanitary owing to leakages from the nearby cemetery and
sewage emerging from nearby houses finding their way into the baths. Frank Ogston immediately visited the
site. “… he had no hesitation in saying
that they (the baths) were not only utterly unfit for use, but their
present condition rendered them dangerous to those bathing there”. He asked the Council to close the baths. Interestingly, in 1903 Dunedin Amateur
Swimming Club’s baths advertised that the cleanliness of their facility had
been certified by Dr Ogston.
Piggeries. While
visiting Queenstown in 1902, Dr Frank Ogston observed four piggeries whose
condition alarmed him. They were
uniformly filthy, had no provision for cleansing, no water supply and their
effluent percolated into the public streets.
He required the Council to remove these facilities and clean up the
sites.
“Night soil”. In
the absence of a proper drainage system, boroughs often had to provide a
service for the collection and disposal of “night soil”, that delicate
euphemism for human excrement. In April
1902, following complaints to him, Frank Ogston was moved to write to
Mornington Borough Council, Dunedin, concerning the disorganised state of their
night soil collection arrangements. He
quickly received what amounted to a rebuff.
The borough clerk informed him that they collected on a monthly basis
and if residents were dissatisfied with that, they could arrange their own
additional collections. In mid-1903,
another dispute arose concerning the disposal of night soil, this time with the
Borough Council of Riverton which lay 20 miles west of Invercargill in
Southland. Frank Ogston had found the
arrangements for disposing of nightsoil there quite unsatisfactory, the excreta
being buried in gardens where it could contaminate wells. The council proposed to change the local
by-laws to provide a collection and disposal service, but this met with local
opposition from a large body of ratepayers who were against any increase in
taxation. Frank Ogston heard of this
opposition and wrote to the Council to warn them of the consequences of
back-tracking. “I therefore recommend
you to provide for the removal, etc, of the night soil in your borough under
sec 53 of the Public Health Act 1900 and by that section you have no power of
refusal but have merely to carry out the recommendation to my satisfaction. This I find you are endeavouring to do and
when I am able to make a visit to your town about the end of the month, I shall
have a look at the place you have chosen for a nightsoil depot in order that it
may be authorised in terms of section 59 of same Act”. Frank Ogston was finding that he might have
the formal legal power to issue instructions to councils but that did not
necessarily result in a suitable response from bloody-minded and cash strapped
councils and hostile ratepayers. However,
over the next few years, the attitudes of local authorities started to change,
as did Frank Ogston’s approach to getting action on nuisances. In early 1905, one of his inspectors had
visited the small settlement of Kaitangata in the southern part of Otago and
his findings caused Frank to write to the town clerk. “Gadstone’s report on his visit to your town
is a very bad one. He states that your
system of night-soil collection has fallen through; that several gullies
throughout the town need cleaning out and existing drains to them need connecting
where they are only partially carried along the gullies, that the school pits
for night-soil are still as they were about eighteen months ago, when I saw
them”. Then, instead of reminding the
town of their obligations and the point in the legislation where they could
find an account, as he would have done a few years previously, he wrote the
following. “I have in contemplation a
visit to your town and trust you will have done something to improve it before
I came”. The town complied!
Stranded whale. On 19
May 1904, a whale was stranded at St Clair Ocean Beach, Dunedin, where it
expired. Frank Ogston immediately
declared it a public nuisance and ordered its removal. One local entrepreneur applied to erect a
tent over the deceased cetacean and charge for viewing it, but he was turned
down on the grounds that the public had a right to see the animal, which was in
a public place, if they wished to do so.
By the middle of June, the carcass was still on the beach, had become
putrid and was emitting an abominable stench, which stayed in the public memory
for a long time. After graduation at
Otago University, the students held a Capping Carnival, a sort of student show
and that year, the whale and Frank Ogston’s role in its disposal, were
memorialised with the following ditty.
Floating
on the morning breeze,
The
awful odour o’t
Made
the worthy Ogston sneeze,
Oh! oh!
the odour o’t!
Straight
the carcass he condemned,
Council
must this state amend,
And
away the nuisance send,
With,
too, the odour o’t
The
poor whale has passed away,
But not
the odour o’t.
We’ll
remember it for aye,
Also
the odour o’t.
That
it’s gone they do declare,
But
when wand’ring round St Clair,
We
still fancy that the air
Has yet
the odour o’t.
.
Isolation hospitals. The fight to suppress infectious diseases of
a dangerous nature required special hospital accommodation to prevent the transmission
of conditions, such as the plague and smallpox, to other patients and a
campaign was mounted to provide appropriate facilities in a variety of
locations. However, since such buildings
are expensive and not in continuous use, it made sense for adjacent authorities
to cooperate by providing shared isolation accommodation. This was the case in Caversham Borough, one
of the suburbs of Dunedin. Frank Ogston,
perhaps trying to be helpful, asked the Borough Council to cooperate with the
city in obtaining permanent isolation facilities but this caused a strong
reaction from Caversham’s mayor who felt that Ogston was exceeding his
authority by issuing such an instruction.
There had been ineffectual campaigning for an isolation hospital for
Dunedin and its surrounding area for many years but by May 1903 no such
facility had been delivered when an emergency need for such accommodation arose
and led to yet another confrontation between Frank Ogston and the City
Council. A nurse, who was tending a
patient with fever, contracted the disease herself. She was in boarded accommodation with others
who wanted her to be removed to isolation.
Frank Ogston agreed but the problem was that there was no available
isolation accommodation. The District
Health Officer telephoned the town clerk requiring him to make arrangements,
but the clerk did nothing and persisted in refusing to take action. Dr Ogston then ordered the victim’s friends
to roll her in blankets and send her to the Town Hall, informing the town clerk
of his actions. His response was that he
would send her back to her lodgings.
Eventually, after a three-day delay, she was moved to more isolated
accommodation. The newspaper, “Press”, commented,
“It is not creditable to a city like Dunedin that three days should elapse
before a fever patient is isolated. It
might also be advisable for municipal officials to study the Public Health Act. They would then learn that in these days a
health officer is not a person whom it is safe to flout”. The happy outcome of this incident, together
with the discovery of a case of smallpox in Dunedin (mild and under the care of
Dr Ogston), was that (almost) all the prevarication was terminated, and a meeting
was rapidly called by the city mayor with all the borough mayors, the Acting
Chief Health Officer, Dr Valentine (who was in the area) and Dr Ogston. The issues under discussion were the
provision of temporary isolation accommodation and the construction of a
permanent isolation hospital. Dr
Valentine was clear about what he wanted.
Although the use of the quarantine island in the harbour as temporary
isolation quarters was not ideal, he would tolerate that if all the mayors
present agreed to cooperate in providing the permanent solution. There was some grumbling that the temporary
accommodation would represent the needless expenditure of £200 and that the one
reported case of smallpox was “only a scare”.
Frank Ogston pointed out the inaccessibility of the island in some
conditions and the inadvisability of exposing smallpox patients to the cold of
a sea journey in winter, but the biggest problem was that the mayors were not
mandated to agree to anything and while they would give their personal support
to the two projects, they had to consult their respective councils to confirm
participation. Valentine, while being
firm and assuring the mayors he wanted to help them in every possible way to
meet their obligations, had to settle for best endeavours on their part and an
agreement to meet again in a few days after borough consultations had taken
place. Clearly, Dr Valentine’s
inter-personal and negotiating skills contrasted with the rigid, legalistic
approach of Frank Ogston. Plans for the
new isolation hospital, which would accommodate 25 patients, were quickly put
together and a site for the hospital chosen.
By the end of 1905, Frank Ogston was getting excellent cooperation from
the authorities in Invercargill in commissioning an epidemic hospital there,
together with a separate institution for consumptives. But he rather pointedly compared the attitude
of Invercargill with the comparative attitude of Dunedin for the need of such
facilities. Otago’s capital continued
to give Frank much grief. In his report
for 1906, Frank wrote, “I regret to say that the Dunedin Board on two occasions
absolutely refused to admit cases of scarlet fever to the hospital, or to
provide for them otherwise; and while former boards have or are having special
hospitals built for these, Dunedin is still shilly-shallying over the matter on
various pretexts”. The point was finally
reached in early 1907, where a site had been agreed for an infectious diseases
hospital at Pelichet Bay, North Dunedin.
A meeting of local authority representatives was then called with Dr
Mason, Chief Health Officer and Dr Ogston, District Health Officer, the purpose
of the meeting being to decide which local authorities would collaborate in the
project and what their financial contributions would be. Dr Mason made clear to the delegates that
they were free to withdraw from the project but, in case of an emergency they
would have to look to their own hospital board for support as none would be
forthcoming from his department. There
was a lot of grumbling from the peripheral counties that they were so far
removed from the site of the proposed facility that they were unlikely ever to
be able to make use of it. This
objection had been met by Dr Ogston who had drawn up a sliding scale of charges
which was mitigated by distance of the local authority from the proposed
facility, but this arrangement did not bring agreement. The fall-back position on deciding allocation
of costs, contained in legislation, was that the decision would be taken by the
magistrate. Finally, after much
discussion, it was agreed that the fall-back machinery would be adopted. Good progress was also made at this time with
the procurement of an isolation hospital for Invercargill, though there too the
decision on allocation of costs was also delegated to the magistrate. The Invercargill isolation hospital at
Riverton was finally ready for use in May 1909.
If it seemed that the last ridge had been breasted on the
approach to the summit of building an isolation hospital for Otago, that proved
not to be so. The reference to the
magistrate for a decision on the allocation of cost had proved abortive as he
threw out the request on a legal technicality.
As a consequence, Frank Ogston had to call a further meeting of
representatives of local authorities liable for a share of cost with a new
scheme, of his own invention, for deriving financial contributions. The capital cost of the hospital would be
about £4,000 and the Government would add a pound for pound subsidy to local
contributions. Running costs would be
£400 - £500 per year. On Frank Ogston’s
scheme, of the money to be raised locally, 69% would come from Dunedin and its
suburbs, the remainder to be divided amongst the Otago districts. But the outer districts again complained that
they would get no benefit from the hospital and several niggled about small
details in Frank Ogston’s estimates.
Although a motion in favour of Frank Ogston’s proposal was carried at
the meeting, about 1/3rd of the delegates voted against, which did
not provide a basis on which to proceed voluntarily. The matter might again have to be referred to
the Magistrate via the Crown Solicitor.
Dr Mason, the Chief Health Officer now stepped in to try to resolve the
matter. He travelled to Dunedin to meet with
the Hospital Board on 8 August 1907.
Mason tried to mollify the Hospital Board by refusing to blame them for
their lack of action in accommodating infectious disease cases, but they had an
obligation in law to look after all the sick people in their area and an
isolation hospital was a necessary part of that provision. Apart from the provision necessary for
diseases such as diphtheria which had a rapid onset, something also needed to
be done for consumptives. He pointed out
that there were 800 deaths per year from this condition in the colony and that
last year there were 66,000 deaths from this cause in England and Wales, more
than in the number of deaths in the recent war in South Africa. Consumption was a great enemy and isolation
of consumptives was essential to protect the population from its spread. The meeting resolved to press on with the
isolation hospital and to consult with Drs Ogston and Mason on the plans. The country districts were still hostile to
providing any funds for a facility they were unlikely to use but Dr Mason told
them that they were free to make local provision at their own cost if they
wished and they would get the Government subsidy for that purpose, but they
must act one way or the other. The
isolation hospital for Dunedin was available for occupation in August 1908, at
which time the temporary camp for scarlet fever patients adjacent to the site
was closed.
Bubonic plague. In
January 1902, Dr James Mason, the Chief Health Officer, visited Dunedin and
together with Frank Ogston inspected various potential sites for a fever
hospital and morgue. There was a
resurgence of the plague in Australia in February 1902 and all District Health
Officers were required to take precautionary action. Frank Ogston went to see the mayor of
Dunedin, who immediately called a conference of suburban mayors, together with
the chairman of the hospital trustees and Frank Ogston to discuss the issues,
including precautions to be taken, the provision of a morgue and the building
of a hospital in which to house people afflicted by infectious diseases. The Otago Times, in an opinion piece,
criticised the lack of attention given to public health in the past and
highlighted the role that the public expected Frank Ogston to play and said,
hopefully, “The municipal authorities, being conscious of his enthusiasm in the
cause of public health, probably understand that, when Dr Ogston drops a hint
to them that the destruction of rats and a general cleaning up of the towns and
boroughs are the first steps to be undertaken, he infers that if they do not
promptly adopt such measures as may be desirable he will himself take the
matter in hand on their account and at their expense”. Hoping to luck, as in the past, was a policy
option which was to be firmly rejected.
The paper did note with satisfaction the decision of the city and
boroughs, collectively, to construct an isolation hospital and morgue. It was eventually agreed to construct the
latter facility at Dunedin’s Southern Cemetery.
One possible way to quickly provide an isolation facility would be to
acquire a hulk and moor it in a suitable location, though this looked like an
interim solution only. One of the
principal precautions against the re-emergence of the plague was to kill down
local rat populations, for example through offering a bounty for each rodent
dispatched. It seemed to be
effective. In mid-1902, it was reported
to the health officer that 800 rats had been killed in Bluff “in a short
period” and a similar number in Invercargill, both in Southland. There was a further scare over bubonic plague
in 1904. There was an outbreak in Sydney
which spread, by ship, to Auckland.
Frank Ogston informed the relevant harbour masters that rat guards were
to be placed on all ships arriving from Sydney and coastal ports. He also acted on an instruction from the
Chief Health Officer to examine rats local to the main ports in his area for
the presence of the disease, but no diseased rats were discovered. In 1907, a single case of the plague was
discovered in Auckland, but Frank Ogston was confident that he could manage the
situation in Otago and Southland. “We
have for some time been searching for rats and not a single diseased one has
been found – not for the past four years.
The case in Auckland has been identified in time and isolated, so that
it is not likely to spread”. The work of
Frank and his brother Health Officers was clearly giving beneficial protection
to the general population of the colony.
Tuberculosis. In 1901
the New Zealand Government had taken a decision to build two sanatoria for
patients suffering from tuberculosis, one in the North Island and one in the
South. Early the following year, Frank
Ogston, together with Dr Newell, visited the Beaumont district 50 miles west of
Dunedin to evaluate the suitability of the area for the location of a
sanatorium. Frank summarised the
conditions ideally required of such a site, accessibility – being less than a
day’s journey from Dunedin, good soil – shingly and thus free-draining,
sunshine, slight rainfall and altitude.
He felt that Beaumont possessed these characteristics “to a fair
degree”. He enlarged on his views about
desirable characteristics for sanatoria in a paper he presented at the meeting
of the New Zealand branch of the BMA held in February. Fundamentally, sanatoria had two objectives,
firstly curing the curable and secondly, preventing the incurable infecting
others and the site characteristics must support those ends. At the end of 1902, the Chief Health Officer
received a complaint from Great Britain concerning consumptives being landed
from New Zealand. In consequence,
practice regarding passengers for Great Britain would change. All third-class passengers would be medically
examined at the port of departure. This
blatant class discrimination may look unfair from a modern perspective but at
the time it was a pragmatic approach to the identification of a sub-population
where most cases of tuberculosis occurred.
Tuberculosis was particularly prevalent amongst the native Maoris and
especially so in the South Island. Frank
Ogston planned to make special provision for the isolation of affected
families. Tuberculosis was always
present, insidiously depriving sufferers of health and life but it was not
viewed by the population as an infectious disease in the same way as acute
conditions were. Frank Ogston complained
in his report for 1903 – 1904 that although there had been 116 deaths from this
cause in his area, only 79 cases had been reported to the authorities. As noted earlier, the Maoris showed a
particularly high prevalence of tuberculosis and in December 1906 a very sad
case came to light. A terminally ill,
half-cast Maori was discharged from Dunedin hospital as incurable, the Hospital
Board declining to provide any further care.
He was eventually found accommodation at Riverton. Frank Ogston was unimpressed with the
dilatory behaviour of his hometown.
“Now, Riverton, Invercargill and other places are making provision for
consumptives, but Dunedin is waiting for the Government to help it. I call it a striking commentary on the
ineptitude and inactivity of the authorities”.
Diphtheria. The
failure of the municipal authorities to provide for an isolation hospital in
the Dunedin area soon led to conflict with Frank Ogston in his role as District
Health Officer. A girl in Roslyn Borough
developed diphtheria in 1902 and Ogston ordered that she must be provided with
housing to isolate her, since the hospital had refused her admission. The cost of this provision fell upon the
Council and upset the local councillors who retaliated by deducting the amount
from their next year’s subscription to the hospital. In his annual report for 1904 – 1905, Dr
Frank Ogston commented on the high incidence of diphtheria in Invercargill and
blamed the state of the drainage system.
However, he recognised that it would probably be necessary for the town
to be amalgamated with its suburbs for a proper drainage system to be
introduced.
Smallpox. Frank
Ogston sometimes went to extreme lengths to protect his patch from admitting
this disease, which was caused by the virus Variola. A cargo of 11 tons of rags, sent from London,
were ordered to be destroyed in 1902 as a precautionary measure, since the
British capital had a high incidence of the disease at the time. There was another smallpox-related incident
involving a ship in August of the same year.
The troopship Orient, 5,365 tons, was returning from South Africa after
the termination of the Second Boer War, carrying Australian and New Zealand
troopers. After leaving Melbourne, it
headed for Port Chalmers near Dunedin, where celebrations were being organised
to welcome the returning men. But all
was not well with the Orient’s military passengers. In addition to complaints about the quality
and quantity of food, dirty conditions and overcrowding, there was a good deal
of sickness, some men were suffering with measles and 20 were quarantined on arrival
at Port Chalmers, the remainder, about 150, travelling on to celebrations in
Dunedin. Ten of the sick soldiers were
then sent on to an isolation hospital at Lyttleton. One proved to be suffering from smallpox,
which immediately caused a headache for Frank Ogston with many potential contacts
having landed in Dunedin. A quarantine
camp was immediately set up and the troops forbidden to leave, though a few
could not resist disobeying the instruction.
Frank Ogston then visited the camp and set to work vaccinating all the
camp residents. No further cases
developed, and Frank Ogston suspected that the victim had caught the disease
from insufficient disinfection of bedding used by a previous passenger with
smallpox. One beneficial outcome of
having to set up this emergency isolation camp was that Frank Ogston was able
to secure 300 pairs of blankets for use in the proposed Dunedin isolation
hospital. In early 1903, due to a
smallpox scare, there was a sudden increase in demands for vaccination in Dunedin
and its surrounding country. It fell to
Frank Ogston to ensure there was a sufficient supply of vaccine matter. Over a period of 10 days more than 100 tubes
were consumed. Two officers from the
steamer Gracchus were examined by Frank Ogston in May 1903 and found to be
suffering from smallpox. It had
previously carried a cargo of kapok from India, where the disease was
endemic. In Melbourne, the third officer
supervised the unloading of this cargo and subsequently messed with the third
engineer, the two men affected. As a
consequence, Frank Ogston and his staff were kept busy vaccinating all the crew
of the Gracchus and their contacts in Dunedin.
A few contacts objected to vaccination but submitted when told the
alternative was quarantine. Some 600
vaccinations were performed in relation to the Gracchus incident. Frank had personal evidence of the efficacy
of vaccination since his brother, Alexander, had caught smallpox as a student
and subsequently deliberately inoculated himself with the disease “yet suffered
no evil results”. Altogether during
1903, his office had issued 2565 tubes of vaccine lymph which was sufficient to
protect more than 5,000 individuals.
There was a progressive movement to vaccinate children against smallpox
but even at the end of 1906, Frank Ogston stated that 80% of children had not
received the benefit of this protection.
Measles and German measles. In
late 1901, there was a severe outbreak of measles in Dunedin, with 118 cases
reported in October, 152 in November and 49 in December. The city and suburbs also suffered an
outbreak of German measles at the end of the following year with 61 cases in November,
coinciding with an epidemic of scarlet fever.
There seems to have been some confusion amongst local doctors over the
differential diagnosis of the two conditions, though Frank Ogston was quite
sure he could diagnose the conditions, having had extensive experience of such
conditions in Aberdeen.
Typhoid fever. This
condition is caused by the bacterium, Salmonella typhi and is usually
transmitted by faecal contamination of food or drinking water. It had occurred sporadically on Frank
Ogston’s patch throughout his period as Health Officer but had not caused a
significant public health problem.
However, in 1903 – 1904 there was a sudden increase in typhoid cases in
Dunedin. “This increase in Dunedin I
think may, to some extent at least, be set down to the disturbance of old
drains in connection with the new system being at present carried out in that
part of my district”. So, it was not
necessarily all bad news.
Scarlet fever. In
the latter part of 1902, there was an epidemic of scarlet fever on Frank
Ogston’s patch, which had not abated by the middle of December. This prompted Frank to take further
action. He reminded the public by way of
a notice in the Evening Star of their legal obligations to avoid exposing other
people to the risk of infection in public places or on public vehicles, under
pain of a fine. He also circularised all
local authorities reminding them of their obligations to have the houses of
those suffering from scarlet fever properly disinfected. But cooperation was reluctant, and a
fractious situation developed which was reported in the New Zealand Times. “Friction has arisen in Dunedin over the
steps taken by the District Health Officer (Dr Ogston) to cope with the
outbreak of scarlet fever. A short time
ago the local bodies were called upon to take the steps for which they are
liable but, as they were somewhat tardy in doing so, Dr Ogston worded his
request somewhat strongly. The Otago
Education Board thought the Health Department was inclined to be arbitrary and
refused to carry out its instructions.
But the Board was put in its place by Frank Ogston’s reply to their
declining to cooperate. “I am sorry to
find that your Board decline to assist me in limiting the spread of the
epidemic now raging in Dunedin. You
state that my request is arbitrary, and beyond the power of the Board to
enforce. Perhaps you are not aware that
I have only to apply to the Governor to get such an order carried out. If you wish me to do this, I shall without
delay do so and then your Board will have no more option in the matter”. The Education Board did not roll over and
comply. They felt that the illness was
too mild, some being claimed to be scarlatina and that the closure of the
schools would be disproportionate and too disruptive. It was an overreaction engendered by the
plague scare of two years ago. Then came
the personal criticism of Frank Ogston by Mr Mitchell. “The letter from Dr Ogston showed a
dictatorial spirit in threatening the Board with action by the Government, and
to ask them to keep children out of their schools simply because a child had a
day’s illness was going too far altogether”.
He went on to describe Ogston’s campaign as a “silly craze”. The Education Board responded to Dr Ogston by
offering to assist him in his approach to the governor. However, reference to this dispute then
disappeared from the extensive pages of New Zealand’s newspapers. Had the matter been quietly dropped due to
the epidemic passing, or perhaps less impetuous minds had intervened? In his annual report for 1903, Frank Ogston
noted that scarlet fever had been raging throughout his patch for the past two
years but that the disease had been gradually tapering off. He pointed to one notable success in
Queenstown where he was personally involved in the campaign to limit the spread
of the disease, visiting every family.
His actions, combined with those of the local doctors was successful and
the disease had been eliminated before the start of the tourist season. But in spite of Frank Ogston’s facility for
rubbing up public bodies the wrong way, his personal zeal and determination was
chalking up some clear successes. At the
end of 1908, there was an outbreak of scarlet fever in the children’s ward of
the Dunedin hospital which spread to the nurses. Some of the medical staff felt that these
infectious patients should be removed from the hospital but the hospital, of
course, had no suitable accommodation for such patients and further did not
want to establish a precedent with Dr Ogston that they could allow such
patients to remain on their premises.
Finally, the Chairman of the Hospital Board found a solution
satisfactory to everyone. The scarlet
fever sufferers would be accommodated in tents on the infectious diseases
hospital site at Pelichet Bay
Statistics and reporting. Frank Ogston proposed using the summer months
of 1902 – 1903 to gather some basic statistics from the boroughs under his
purview, which would aid the conduct of his job in the future. He proposed to collect information on the
situation, climate, size, water supply, drainage, industries, hospitals and
cemeteries. It was also his intention to
request copies of local by-laws. Frank
Ogston issued a circular to local authorities making his requests. He also started issuing a monthly report
showing the numbers of cases of infectious diseases notified to him. His cases were categorised by disease, and
town or country location. Of 46 cases,
42 occurred in the towns and their suburbs and the most frequent diseases were
measles, German measles and tuberculosis.
The statistics on infectious disease, issued by Frank Ogston in August
1903, illustrated well the general burden carried by the population of his area
of responsibility at that time. An
epidemic of scarlet fever was then abating, with monthly reports of cases down
from a high of 199 to 55 in the previous month.
There had been no cases of typhoid but a few examples of diphtheria with
one fatality. Chicken pox had previously
been reported around Bluff and Invercargill in the south and was then prevalent
in the Dunedin area. It is surely
understandable that Frank Ogston felt keenly the need for precautions against the
spread of these common diseases. Annually,
the Department of Public Health, headed by Dr Mason, presented a report to the
Parliament in Wellington, opening with a pointed reference to the tendency of
New Zealanders to prevaricate when under the threat of an outbreak of smallpox. “Once again we have had a warning, and once
again we have escaped with comparatively little damage”, referring to the
reappearance of the disease in Christchurch, which proved to be limited in its
spread. “It may not always be so; and
though many submitted themselves to the only sure protection against the
disease – vaccination – there is a danger, now that the enemy has been
expelled, of our falling back into the old attitude of “waiting till it comes
before being done”.
Included in the Health Department’s report for 1903 – 1904
was a section by Frank Ogston on the Otago District (which included
Southland). He, too, opened with a
complaint that his local authorities had only a vague understanding of their
obligations under the Public Health Act but, on a positive note, commented that
“… in some districts we now have men instructed and active in these duties” and
he specifically mentioned the work of Inspector Donaldson in Dunedin. He went on to praise particular districts for
their sanitary activities and for actively seeking his advice. “Among other instances of progress, I may
mention that I have been consulted about the water supply of towns in five
cases and regarding schemes of drainage in four cases. A few towns have even started collecting
night soil, or are at least contemplating such a municipal service. Further, he had also been consulted on
municipal plans for the provision of isolation facilities to cope with
epidemics. Frank Ogston concluded his
section of the report with the following hopeful statement. “… I think I may claim that our department is
doing a great amount of useful work, which as shown by the numerous
applications by the public generally, is becoming more and more recognised by
the people at large. I may also state
that the local authorities are showing their appreciation of the assistance our
department is able to give them in carrying out their duties, and that the work
which devolves on them is being better done than in the past, when they had
practically no central department to fall back upon, and were therefore perhaps
more amenable to local influences”. After all the battles, Frank’s mix of
exhortations and threats was having the desired effect, though the war was not
yet won.
A measure of just how intensely Frank Ogston tackled his
job was given in his District Health Officer’s report in 1906. He had written 280 separate communications to
local government officers, and others on sanitary matters and he had paid over
120 visits of inspection to places in the northern part of his district.
Friction between the Health Officer and the local
authorities
However, some borough councils still found it difficult to
deal with Frank Ogston as a public official doing his job conscientiously, if
vigilantly, rather than as an over-critical busy-body with a personal grudge
against them, as happened at Roslyn in October 1902. Frank Ogston had received a complaint from Mr
GT Bain that drainage from eight houses was being channelled onto his land in
John Street, Roslyn. As a consequence, Frank
wrote to Roslyn Council, as the responsible local authority, requesting it to investigate
and provide a remedy. Ogston’s letter
was considered at a council meeting chaired by the deputy mayor, Mr Kemnitz,
who took great exception to the health officer’s letter and led an antagonistic
discussion in which Frank Ogston was accused of comprehensively getting his
facts wrong, “acting beyond all limits” and writing this and several other
letters which were “ill-considered”.
Kemnitz then proposed a resolution, passed unanimously, which contained
the following section. “That this
Council acknowledge receipt of Dr Ogston’s letter but consider it would be a
great deal more satisfactory to all parties concerned if the Health Officer,
before communicating officially with local bodies, ascertained the correctness
or otherwise of any complaints made to him. …”.
Frank’s long reply is available and parts of it are reproduced
here. “I have received your letter of
the 23rd inst., containing what I can only regard as a grossly
discourteous resolution, and one which is quite unworthy of a Board
representing the public to have sent to a public servant who is only performing
a duty laid on him by Act of Parliament.
The resolution, as conveyed in your letter, assumes that I have not
taken the trouble to acquaint myself with the nuisance to which I draw your
attention. In this they are quite wrong
… They have in reality themselves done
what they have taxed me with doing”.
Frank went on to lay before Roslyn Council in detail that there was a
nuisance, that it was their responsibility to fix it and the basis in law by
which he made his pronouncements.
Kemnitz was not backing down and he accused Frank Ogston of sending yet
another discourteous letter and requesting his presence in the borough to
explain what he wanted to their engineer.
For his part, Frank Ogston forwarded the whole correspondence to his
boss in Wellington, Dr James Mason, which was not necessarily a good move. But perhaps at this point, Frank should have
asked himself if he was entirely on firm ground with regard to the statements
he had made. ETF – establish the facts –
has been, is, and always will be, good advice to the parties to any dispute,
where facts are called into question.
The Evening Star then weighed in with an editorial in
strong support of Frank Ogston. It is
reproduced in full. “We are sure that
public opinion will endorse Dr Ogston’s protest against the tone adopted
towards him, in his public capacity as Health Officer, by the Roslyn Borough
Council. The conceit and touchiness of
suburban councils are almost proverbial, but probably the municipal senators of
Roslyn would have behaved less foolishly if they had had the guidance of their
worthy mayor. It was the Deputy Mayor
(Councillor Kemnitz) who drafted and secured the adoption of the resolution
which justly provoked Dr Ogston’s indignation, and called forth the letter, at
once scathing and dignified, that appeared in our issue of Saturday. The resolution was a painful compound of
impertinence and feeble sarcasm, and the Health Officer hardly went too far in
describing it as “grossly discourteous”.
We do not dwell at present upon the details of the issue between the
Roslyn Council and the Health Officer, as the matter is apparently to be
further investigated; but we wish to give emphatic expression to what we are
convinced is the general opinion concerning the status and rights of the Health
Officer in his dealings with public bodies.
Dr Ogston has reminded the Roslyn Council, in singularly effective
fashion, that it is as a public servant performing a duty that he has concern
with them; whereas they, in their foolish readiness to take offence where no
offence was, seem to assume that he has been actuated by motives of personal
meddlesomeness. It is a rather thankless
office that Dr Ogston has been called upon to fill, seeing that sanitary
education is only in its infancy, and the vested rights of dirtiness and
ignorance form no trivial obstacle. We
are determined that as far as we are concerned, this capable and enlightened
officer shall be steadily supported in his zealous effort to perform a
difficult duty; and we trust that no other public bodies - or individuals, for
that matter – will copy the Roslyn Borough Council’s silly attempt to slight
him and hamper his work. We wish the
Council could be forced to frame the doctor’s letter and hang it in a conspicuous
place on the wall of the Council Chamber”.
The Evening Star’s editorial stung Kemnitz into replying at
length. He stuck firmly to his
guns. Dr Ogston was factually incorrect
and did not understand the drainage of the area at issue as there was no
leakage onto Mr Bain’s land. He
described Ogston’s last letter as “offensive”, “extremely childish” and
“petulant” and the whole position as a “precious concoction”. “But as a free man, in a free land, I shall
at all times to the best of my ability discountenance that pompous and
overbearing manner unfortunately assumed by a few Government officials and
shall not flinch from fairly and fearlessly expressing my opinions, whether
they meet with your approval or not”.
Ouch! Kennitz seemed sure that
Ogston was acting on a false premise, but his outspoken language was adding
heat to the dispute without shedding much light. Cooler heads were needed and about this time,
the mayor of Roslyn, Councillor McKenzie, returned to duty and immediately
sought to defuse the antagonism which had arisen between his deputy and the
Health Officer.
On 23 October Frank Ogston wrote again to Roslyn Borough
Council in calmer tones now that Mr Kemnitz was no longer wielding such
influence. Frank Ogston repeated that it
was his duty to call the attention of local authorities to complaints of
nuisance that he received, and it was their duty to investigate those
complaints, remove the causes and report to him what had been observed and what
had been done by way of remedy. But “He
was aware that many complaints daily received were more or less ill-founded,
but he could not disregard them and he had to pass them on to be
investigated. If this were understood,
it would tend to himself and the council acting harmoniously”. This was as close as Frank came to saying
“Sorry, some details of my claim were inaccurate”. Frank Ogston then made a visit to Roslyn to
examine the drains in the area of dispute between John and Ann Streets. Inevitably he found defects in the drainage
arrangements but, crucially not the leakage onto Mr Bain’s land which had been
claimed by the complainant. This gave
Frank some justification for his stance, in that the Council must have seen
that there were defects in the drainage which needed fixing. The mayor himself went over the ground and
confirmed that Frank’s original claim was in error, but he sensibly welcomed
Frank’s, more emollient tone and did not press for an unambiguous apology,
though he regretted some of the language in Frank’s original correspondence and
also his action in passing correspondence to the press. Further the mayor expressed the hope that
there would be no further unpleasantness and that they could work together
amicably. This whole episode cannot have
done Frank’s reputation any good. He had
made an accusation which could not withstand detailed examination and his boss,
Dr Mason had been made aware of the whole emotional episode. On the other hand, Mayor McKenzie had been
shown to be the man with the keen diplomatic skills.
Frank Ogston and the medical examination of school pupils
By 1906, Frank Ogston had become involved in a new front in
the Department of Health’s quest to improve public health – schools. The impetus for this development may have
come from Frank Ogston’s brother, Alexander, who, in 1902 had been appointed to the Royal Commission on
Physical Training in Scottish Schools. In July 1906, it was announced
that Frank intended to meet with schoolteachers “for the purpose of instructing
them in detecting the beginnings of disease or affections of any kind amongst
the children under their care”. It was a
policy which had been approved by Dr Mason, supported by experience in
Manchester schools where, in 1904 – 1905, 32,486 pupils had their eyes tested
and 6.5% were found to have serious defects in their vision and 1% defective
hearing. Frank Ogston, speaking to the
Educational Institute at the request of Dr Mason, reported his own case. He had been short-sighted, but the problem
was not diagnosed with the result that he had had to wear glasses all his
life. There was a risk of a child with
defective vision being branded as “dull”.
He would also like to see a record kept of the physical measurements of
children. By early 1907, Frank Ogston
had produced a booklet, with the oversight of Dr Mason, for the instruction of
teachers on what signs to look out for in children that indicated a medical
problem was present. Such symptoms as
the gaping mouth, the persistent turning of one ear towards the teacher, the
peering look, the slight cough, the rash and the disinclination to play, were
highlighted. Frank Ogston later said
that he had culled his advice from the report of the Royal Commission, which he
had presumably obtained courtesy of his brother. The Evening Star was impressed by the
booklet. “Dr Ogston’s valuable treatise
on the medical inspection of school; children, with hints for teachers, is in
our hands. It reveals at every turn the
labour that the Health Officer has put into the work, and it must prove very
valuable to the profession”. The booklet
was distributed to all New Zealand schools.
In June 1907, Frank Ogston addressed the Southland Educational Institute
on the subject of the medical examination of school children. He was well received but the teachers were
not keen to take responsibility for instituting his scheme. He also spoke to the Otago Educational
Institute, saying he would be deliberately provocative and invite
criticism. Frank again received a good
reception. He suggested that a teacher
who thought a child was unfit for school should send the child home with a
recommendation to the parents that they should see their medical adviser. One problem with this approach for the
teachers was that if a child was not in attendance, it reduced their pay. Frank agreed to support them in getting the
regulation changed so that a child absent though ill health would be marked as
present on the school register. The
meeting signalled its support for Frank Ogston’s initiative by passing several
resolutions, the most important of which was, “(1) That physical training
should be regarded as of equal importance with mental training. (2) That Education Boards should have the
command of medical advice and assistance in regard to the health of school
children. (3) That it be a
recommendation to teachers to keep a systematic record of physical and health
statistics, provided a book be furnished by the department. (4) That every child should be medically
examined before he begins his school course and again at suitable intervals
during his school course”. Frank
Ogston’s scheme for the medical examination of school children was considered
by the Mataura (Southland) Education Board and revealed a rather mixed spectrum
of views. Some thought it unworkable,
due to lack of knowledge on the part of the teachers, opposition or even
hostility from parents, the reluctance of parents to take action if a defect
was uncovered, the reluctance of children to stay away if it affected their
gaining an attendance certificate and whether this was an appropriate role for
teachers anyway. Fortunately, in spite
of the Eeyores of Mataura, a generally supportive resolution was adopted. In October 1908, an epidemic of scarlet fever
and measles was present especially in northern Dunedin, but cases were
diminishing and no patient had died. “Dr
Ogston is much gratified to find that the schoolmasters are closely watching
the health of the children and doing all they can to keep the schools free from
the diseases”.
It was clear by 1903 that Frank Ogston’s zealous and
persistent approach to improving public health in his bailiwick was having some
good results, albeit at the cost of ruffled feathers amongst local
councillors. In March of that year, he
attended a conference of health officers for the whole of the colony and was
pleased to find that in the south the local authorities were advancing more
quickly than in most other districts.
“In some of the northern districts, for instance, no steps at all have
been taken by local authorities to provide hospitals for infectious
diseases”. In comparison, in
Invercargill, “the local authorities are proceeding vigorously in the matter”.
There is no
doubt that in the south of the South Island, Frank Ogston was something of a
Marmite character in the perception of officials, councillors and members of
the public. While he was often perceived
as being inflexible, remote, legalistic and interfering, he was also recognised
as a hard-working, devoted public servant who did not shirk his
responsibilities and did not fear upsetting powerful local personalities. He had a clear-sighted vision which he
pursued throughout his time of employment in New Zealand: the improvement of
public health in all its aspects. On his
retirement from his public role in May 1910, a letter appeared in the Otago
Daily Times, which is reproduced here, which well illustrates a popular view of
this guardian of public health and well-being.
“Sir, - The citizens of Dunedin and Otago owe Dr Ogston a very great
deal indeed for the manner in which he performed his duties prior and
subsequent to his appointment to his present position. As far back as 20th January 1894
in a course of lectures before the Ambulance Society he spoke in no measured
terms of the insanitary state of affairs the result of which was apparent for a
short period. The municipal bodies were
crassly ignorant then and probably they may yet to a degree require further
information and to this end the writer fondly hopes that Dr Champaloup (Ogston’s
successor) will not be hampered or hindered in the fearless discharge of
his duties which are more important than any other under the Government as the
loss sustained by inaction is irreparable as is well known to the writer. – I
am, etc JM”.
The retirement
and death of Frank Ogston
The first hint
that Frank Ogston was not enjoying robust good health came in 1908 when the
Evening Star reported that “The District Health Officer (Dr Ogston) … has not
been in the best of health for some time …”.
This was about the time
that his wife and daughter left for Europe, and he took a three week break in
the North Island. While he was away on
holiday, Dr Williams moved into 48 High Street to provide a medical service. A year later Frank Ogston announced
that he intended to take voluntary retirement at the end of 1909 from the
position of District Health Officer for Otago and Southland and to continue
with his private practice, which he had been required to give up on being
appointed to his present post in 1901.
Explaining his decision, Frank Ogston said, “I feel myself not so fit
for the work as I was. I have a little
bronchial trouble now and again and cannot shake it off. In these circumstances I do not care to face
another winter’s arduous work in town and country, especially with the prospect
of the duties being made so much more difficult by the want of sufficient
inspectors. Both my inspectors are now
taken away”. Although he was slated to
retire at the end of December 1909, Frank Ogston agreed to stay in post, in a
supervisory role for two or three months, until a successor was recruited,
preventing him immediately resuming his private practice. Frank’s performance of his role of interim
Health Officer, did not hint at any diminution of his zeal. In late January 1910, Frank Ogston condemned
850 boxes (about 25 tons) of frozen fish in Dunedin as being unfit for human
consumption. It was dumped at sea. Frank continued in his interim role until the
end of April 1910, when his successor, Dr Champteloup arrived in post. Frank then picked up a new medical role, that
of public vaccinator. Two years later he
was kept busy vaccinating passengers from the South Island, who called at the North
Island where there was an outbreak of smallpox, before they could travel on to
Australia. In September 1911, Frank
Ogston’s name was published in a list of superannuated civil servants as being
medically unfit. He drew an annuity
derived from his Government employment of £76 17s per year.
Dr Champteloup
was well-qualified for his new role. At
the University of Edinburgh, he had been awarded a string of academic prizes
and was awarded a B.Sc. in Public Health.
He had filled hospital appointments in Edinburgh, Manchester and
Cardiff. Although his geographical area
of responsibility was confined to Dunedin, he was also to fill the role of
Government Bacteriologist for the whole of the South Island and the position of
Lecturer in Bacteriology and Public Health at Otago University.
After his
retirement, Frank Ogston was involved in the formation of a new society, the
Sanitary Association, of which he became the first president. It was, in a sense, a successor to the
defunct Sanitary Institute in providing a public forum for the discussion of
issues relating to sanitation and public health. He read a paper before the Association which
contained a summary of his work as Health Officer for Otago and Southland and a
fitting memorial to his achievements.
“Looking back to my nine years’ connection with the Public Health
Department, I may be allowed to claim some credit for the work done, with the
assistance of my able and zealous assistants.
In figures only approximate we have called attention to about 3,700
defective drains, 3,600 defective privies, 230 dirty piggeries, 260 dirty fowl
runs, 600 dirty stables and cowsheds, 659 dilapidated or insanitary
houses. While we have inspected about
2,250 shops, factories, etc., 550 hotels, boarding houses and restaurants, 830
stores, warehouses, etc., and 10,000 dwelling-houses. And in Dunedin and other parts of this health
district somewhere over 650 houses were either condemned as totally unfit for
human habitation, or repairs were ordered to make them passable”. To call Frank Ogston “hard-working” and
“zealous” would not be overstating his approach to the job of health officer. Perhaps Frank would have further bolstered
his record if he had quoted statistics for the outcomes of his efforts, in
addition to his inputs?
It was ironic
that the environmental zealotry favoured by Frank Ogston when in office caught
him out in retirement, in July 1916, when he was fined 5s with 7s costs for
allowing his chimney to catch fire.
Mrs Kate Ogston
died in September 1916, at 236 High Street, Dunedin, her death being announced
in a brief message in the Evening Star.
“Private interment. No
flowers”. She left a personal estate of
£1,286. In 1917, during WW1, Frank
Ogston appears to have returned briefly to the role of District Health Officer,
but time was running out for him too. He
died suddenly on 6 September 1917 at his residence 236 High Street,
Dunedin. He had been suffering from
angina pectoris for the past six months.
Frank was buried at Anderson’s Bay cemetery. The family home was put up for sale, with a
detailed specification. In summary, it
was described as follows. “Substantially
built brick house, 9 rooms, 2 dressing rooms, splendid freehold section. Five minutes’ walk from post office. A beautiful town residence specially suitable
for professional man”. It has not been
verified that this was the same house built for the Ogstons and previously
given the address of 48 High Street, but that seems likely. The property was bought by Dr Fergus for a
price of about £2,000. When she cleared
the house, Coreen Ogston donated a selection of her father’s medical books to
the University of Otago.
The life of
Frank Ogston
His was a life
of contrasts. He was born into a family
which was comfortably provisioned, to a doctor father who later occupied a
prestigious position in Aberdeen society, both in its academic life and in its
civil conduct of the affairs of the police and public health arrangements. But in spite of this privileged background
Frank did not immediately find his calling in life and, once he had qualified
as a doctor, he struggled to establish himself professionally, unlike his
father and his high-achieving brother.
In his personal life, too, Frank plumbed the depths of despair following
the death of his first wife after only four years of marriage, yet after being
translocated to a new society in the colony of New Zealand, he did become
professionally established and also found personal happiness with a new wife.
Frank
established himself in university life in Dunedin, though the local institution
was somewhat impoverished, and he also developed a flourishing private medical practice,
though his adoptive city hardly compared with Aberdeen in size, national
prominence or medical status. In truth,
it was a colonial outpost and that gave Frank Ogston both substantial
opportunities and repeated challenges in his quest to bring modern public
health measures into general use.
Frank Ogston
was both helped and hindered by his own personal characteristics. Without doubt, he lacked interpersonal skills. His approach to dealing with local
authorities was legalistic, blunt and authoritarian. He was ever quick to threaten action through
the legal system and to demand compliance with the letter of the law, no matter
what the financial implications for local councils, which often presided over
weak local economies. Frank, too, was
prone on occasions to exaggerate his case and while some of his supporters felt
this was an example of the end justifying the means, to others such a tactic
damaged his authority. With time and
experience, Frank did learn to soften his approach a little.
Frank Ogston’s councillor
adversaries were often bloody-minded settlers who were used to dealing with
their own affairs and not minded to take advice from officious outsiders, no
matter what their qualifications. They
also knew that the law was often flouted with impunity, especially where public
health matters were concerned. Some of
Frank’s colleagues in the public health hierarchy were more emollient in their
approach to difficult local officials and representative members, but that too
had its downside, in a frequent resort to compromise and, as a consequence,
diminished authority.
What is clear
from an examination of the numerous confrontations between Frank Ogston and
local government, is that there were faults in approach on both sides but that
Frank’s persistence and reluctance to yield to pressure and personal abuse did
eventually pay dividends as the south of the South island of New Zealand was
progressively dragged into the modern era in terms of its public health
provision, largely as a result of Frank Ogston’s unbending pursuit of the cause
of the welfare of the population. Frank
Ogston died aged 71. He had lived and
worked in New Zealand for 31 years and, in spite of his quirks of personality,
had served his adopted country and its population honestly and well. Public health was not a branch of medicine
which made heroes of its leading practitioners, unlike surgery and the conquest
of infectious disease, the domains of Frank Ogston’s prominent brother, but
Frank, though his professional life, undoubtedly had a substantial impact on
the health and happiness of South Islanders at the turn of the 19th
century.
Don Fox
20220907
donaldpfox@gmail.com
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