Miscellaneous
Dr Poole’s medal group, comprising The Order of St. Michael and St. George, Companion’s breast badge; Central Africa Medal 1891 -98 with clasp Central Africa 1894-98; East and West Africa Medal 1887-1900, with clasp 1897-98; and China Medal 1900 with clasp Defence of Legations, was sold in these rooms in March 2021 .
Wordsworth Poole was born at St. Paul’s Cray, Kent, on 7 December 1867, the son of Samuel Wordsworth Poole, an M.D. of Aberdeen and Vicar of St. Mark’s, Cambridge, and the grandson of Richard Poole, an eminent physician, psychiatrist and phrenologist, who practised in Edinburgh. He was educated at St. Olave’s School, London, where he won several scholarships, and St. Catherine's College, Cambridge. Completing his medical training at Guy’s Hospital, an organisation to which he developed a lifelong loyalty, qualifying as an M.B. and B.C.H. and serving time as house surgeon, he went overseas in search of adventure, first to Africa, then to China.
Africa
Poole kept a private Journal and wrote many letters to members of his family, providing a rare insight into an important period of British rule in the interior of Africa, dealing with the final overthrow of the armed forces of the African and Arab leaders who conducted a huge traffic in slaves. They also contain much of interest from a medical and mental health perspective and many references to the life led by the early Europeans in the interior of Africa (and subsequently, China). One of Poole’s first tasks was to make and fit a prosthetic for an African whose leg had been bitten off by a crocodile. Poole found his work with the indigenous peoples highly rewarding; he considered many of the European missionaries and soldiers less likeable as patients and companions.
The sickness and mortality rate amongst the Europeans must have been one of the highest in the world, an overall annual death rate of around 10%. The death rate among officials was particularly high. In 1897-98 out of the total of 65 in the country around Lake Nyasa there were 12 deaths (18%), practically all in the prime of life. Kinetic injuries abounded, especially in rural areas. Dr Poole joined Major C. E. Edwards on his campaign against Zirafi, a powerful slaver chief based on a steep, easily defended hill covered with boulders, which was tough to approach ‘with people potting at you from good cover.’ The skirmishing en-route was described by Poole in a letter to his mother: ‘I and my hospital carriers were passing a clearing when about 70 yards away from us two guns blazed off from behind rocks. The porters threw down their loads and hooked. My boy ran up to me with my rifle, and I was trying to catch sight of someone to fire at (I’m fairly steady with the rifle now) when I saw a flash and some smoke, followed by another, and a bullet fell near my feet, knocking up dust into my face.’ Poole performed several operations in the field: ‘Last Saturday I took off a man’s hand. He had been shot through the wrist by one of Zirafi’s men about six weeks ago. Since then he has had Tetanus… He is doing well now and it has all healed up by primary union.’
On 24 November 1895, Poole accompanied Major Edwards, Smith and Bradshaw of 35th Sikhs on the German Steamer S.S. Hermann von Wissman on their way up to subdue the Arab slaver strongholds of Mloze, Kopa Kopa and Kapandanser; their force of 400 soldiers arriving in detachments. Stopping on the way at Likoma, a missionary station, Poole reflected on the psychology of Europeans who came to Africa: ‘There is a peculiarity about the men who have been in Africa some time. You get into a groove of your own and can’t bear anyone else to be running the show with you. Look at Livingstone and his fearful temper and quarrels with other white men. Kirk, Stanley and all of them the same. One’s temper must become ruined. It is so noticeable with every head of out-stations; they are all bears in one way and brook no interference. I see that one must make enormous allowances for people out here. The circumstances are so adverse. There is no public opinion and such a fierce light of criticism beats upon the actions of a handful of white men out here.’
Poole described in his letters the appalling outbreaks of severe dysentery, malaria and blackwater fever and the difficulties he had in dealing with them single-handed: ‘Just now there is a great deal of sickness about. In the last fortnight I have had about 40 cases of very acute dysentery, some cases of pneumonia and other minor ones.’ He too succumbed to recurrent bouts of fever in the Nyasa region and in Nigeria, to extent that he had to return to England as a convalescent.
He recorded his options in his Journal on 6 June 1899: ‘1. Another billet from Colonial Office in a healthy climate. Such a billet as would be worth my while accepting would probably be a long time turning up. 2. Stay at home and try and get on Tropical School of Medicine - but pay poor. 3. Foreign Office said there was a possibility of post of physician to Legation at Peking falling vacant. Worth about £700 a year. Climate good. Drawbacks to this appointment not allowed private practice… and no further advancement. But an easy well-paid billet. My prospects in Nigeria were good - whether it will be possible or politic to go back to Nigeria after say 2 years in Peking is a question that will probably present itself later.’
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