The English hospital, Tangier, 1883-1908.

We can imagine no career more lofty or honourable than that of a well-informed, capable and courageous medical missionary. A few hundred of such men in the next half century would powerfully affect the history of China, India and Africa. between the years 1883 and 1908. 1883 marks the beginning of medical work in Tangier and over the next twenty-five years this was the only hospital with one qualified doctor for all the five million Moorish population of the country. This account has been made from the reports sent back from the hospital over the years and recorded in the North Africa Magazine. In 1890 the hospital is referred to as 'the only hospital for the natives of Morocco'. Other 'medicine' came from local 'doctors' who used such prescriptions as sulphur, tar and vitriol; leaves or even paper and earth often being used for dressing ulcers and cuts. The difficulties of working under these conditions were immense. The doctors and nurses had to learn Arabic, and French and Spanish were also useful. It is always difficult to persuade people to follow medical advice and this was more than usually so in Morocco through ignorance and suspicion towards all things foreign. It is not possible to give a precise survey as statistics and case notes are not available. This account will aim more at describing the nature of the work and giving an impression of what was done. The Tulloch Memorial Hospital, Tangier, was founded in 1887. The hospital was preceded by a dispensary which developed spontaneously into a 'hospital' when on 6 July 1886 'an old man with a bad sore on his chest arrived. He is very poor and has journeyed all the way from Fez [300 miles away] to see the doctor. He will not go away. He has seated himself in one corner of the stable and seems to think it a palace. It is empty but clean and sweet and as he desires it he is to remain, so we have our first In-Patient.' The hospital which later came into being was named after Miss Heather Tulloch who died in December 1886, of typhoid fever with pulmonary complications, having spent less than two years in Tangier as a nurse. TIhe first missionaries arrived in Tangier in 1883, and very soon they began dispensing medicine to the Moorish (Arab), Berber, Jewish and European population. The wife of …