The following information is a copy of JK Stokes data on Mount Barker as contained in her Rootsweb (Ancestory.com) Genealogy Website  and has been included here with permission.  No alterations or additions may be made to her information without further permission, although relevant comments and/or additions are welcome to be added at the bottom of each page.  (copied July 2014)

Medicine and Medicos

Until the end on the 1860's there was no doctor living and working in Mt Barker.  People used homeopathic remedies to try and cure just about everything from the common cold to cancer. Babies were delivered by midwives or mothers and sisters who had already given birth to their own children.

Doctors

The first doctor to be resident in the town was Dr. Chalmers, who lived in the building that would later become the RSL rooms.  There were a succession of doctors in the town after the arrival of Dr Chalmers.  The following lists some of them, and where they practised.

• Dr. Octavius Weld - practised out of the same house as Dr Chalmers had.  So well respected was Dr Weld, that a park within the town was named in his honour.
• Dr. Forster - also practised out of the same house as Dr Chalmers had.
• Dr. Dean - lived at "The Arcacia"
• Dr Bickle - also lived at "The Arcacia", but later bought some land on the corner of Druids Avenue and Pridmore Terrace and built the two story house there, that would serve as residence and surgery for many of the doctors who followed him.  The house was named "St. Leonards", and is today a private residence, although no doctors have lived in it for some time.
• Other Doctors who have lived at "St Leonards" and practised medicine in the town include Blaxland, Hamilton, Scott, Smeaton, Wunderly, Bartram, Pridmore, Shaw and the last practising doctor to live there was Dr. Shepherd.
• Other Doctors in the town have included Dr. John MacDonald and Dr. William Schaeffer.

Of course, these days, there are several surgeries in the town, and numerous doctors.  Medicine in Mt Barker has come a long way in 160 years.

The Hospital

Mt Barker Hospital c. 1938There was no hospital in the town for many years, although the very seriously ill were taken to Nairne to Miss Thomas's hospital and treated there.

In 1918, when a particularly bad flu epidemic broke out, and it became necessary to isolate patients, an empty house belonging to Thomas Paltridge was used as a make-shift hospital.  Dr. Wunderley, being the physician in charge at the time, asked Mrs. Barr-Smith of "Auchendarroch" to assist him in building a hospital as a memorial to the veterans of World War I.  She generously donated £1,350 to the building fund, and the townsfolk donated the rest.  Furnishings and fittings were obtained from various sources, including Miss Thomas' hospital at Nairne.  The first part of the hospital was opened in 1919 and in 1927 a kitchen and nurses' home were added. In 1929, a babies nursery and night nurses' rooms were added, and later still other wings were added.

Today, the hospital is the largest medical complex between Adelaide and Murray Bridge, with several operating theatres and treatment rooms, visiting specialist suite, radiology department and other necessities of modern medicine.  I owe my life to the nursing staff and Doctors at Mt Barker District Soldiers Memorial Hospital.

[ JKS Home ]    last updated 18 October 2005