The early days of a NSW rural hospital

This newsletter article explores how life in the bush in rural New South Wales during the 19th century could be insecure, with risks from accidents, illness, natural disasters, and disease. Medical care was at best basic, and no medical help could often mean the difference between life and death. In the small market town of Camden, NSW, which served as the centre of a dairying region, a scarlet fever outbreak in 1899 created community anxiety. A local dairyman's farm was quarantined, and the family had no reliable income, which created much hardship.