Life and love of a country doctor

At a time in the 1830s when families lived with the constant fear of cholera epidemics, smallpox, typhus and death in childbirth, Dr Robert Storrs was one of the few medical men who kept detailed notes of his cases and also carried out research in his free time.

For more than 150 years his files and personal letters to his wife gathered dust before his great-great-grandson, also a medical man, decided to turn his life into a book.

Humane and Heroic – the life and love of a 19th century country doctor, has been written by Dr John Tooth, a semi-retired psychiatrist who lives in Tasmania, Australia.

Dr Tooth, aged 75, is one of around 500 great-great-grandchildren of Dr Storrs, who practised in Doncaster from 1824 until his death in 1847. Dr Tooth started writing the book for his descendants but found it so compelling he thought it should reach a wider audience.

Dr Tooth travelled to Doncaster for the launch of the publication at the Mansion House with the chair of the council Tony Sockett. The author also toured the town centre and visited the house in Hallgate where his ancestor lived in the 1830s, which is now a Chinese restaurant.

Although Humane and Heroic concentrates on the medical aspects of Dr Storrs' career, it is also based on many of the 131 letters written between the doctor and his wife, Martha, who bore him 12 children.

While the case studies are written in unemotional medical terms, the letters are full of life, love and the observations of two intelligent people on the dramatic events of their time.

Dr Tooth said: "Dr Storrs was an astonishing man because he had an interest in research at a time when most country doctors did not do this and very few from that era left behind material such as this.

"He also did some notable research which showed a connection between a skin infection and childbed fever which killed thousands of mothers just after childbirth.

"When he sent off his findings to the Government of the time he was told his work would save the lives of thousands of women."

The book shows what it was like to be sick at a time of rudimentary medicine when bacteria and anaesthetics were still to be discovered.

Material from the casebooks is presented with great realism and the account by Dr Storrs of the 1832 cholera epidemic does not make pleasant reading.

Dr Tooth has been assisted by Doncaster Royal Infirmary's archivist, Garry Swann, who has provided old Doncaster pictures used to illustrate it.

Mr Swann said: "I read the book in manuscript form and found it to be very interesting, so we are hoping it will prove of interest to people in Doncaster as well as members of Dr Tooth's family."

Dr Storrs died from typhus, one of the deadly diseases he had to treat, at the age of 46.

n Humane and Heroic is available from the Blue Building, High Street and costs 18.