Dispensaries and Infirmaries

The Medical Charities Act, passed in 1851, empowered the boards of guardians to divide the poor law unions into dispensary districts and to provide dispensaries in the same. The boards had to provide the necessary appliances and medicines, and the salaries of the medical officers were to be paid out of the poor rate. In 1851 the 3,438 electoral divisions of the country were divided into 718 Dispensary Districts.

The dispensary districts in Milford were based on the old vaccination districts of which there were five - Ramelton, Rathmullan, Fannett, Rossguill and Kilmacrennan-Milford', and committees of management

Dispensary District Committees of Management

Extract from the minutes of Milford Board of Guardians where committees of management for each dispensary district were appointed.

were appointed by the boards of guardians to run these.

Dispensaries provided the first type of medical help that was widely available to the majority of the population on a local level.

An example of one person who was treated in the workhouse infirmary was a girl named Sarah Davis. A newspaper reported that a Records of Death of Sarah Davis girl called Sarah Davis, aged 19 from Magheradrummon, Milford had died in the infirmary as a result of an injury she had sustained to her arm in an accident with a Threshing Mill. She was admitted to the workhouse on the 14th April 1906 to have her arm amputated but the operation failed to save her life and on the 26th April 1906 she died of Tetanus in Milford Workhouse Infirmary.

The image below is taken from the Record of Deaths of Milford Workhouse and gives details of the cause of death of Sarah Davis, who was admitted to the Infirmary as a result of an accident with a Threshing Mill and died there. (BG/119/3/6)