Step back in time with the Pomegranate podcast

The latest episode of Pomegranate – the RACP's medical podcast – takes you back two hundred years with tales of the conditions at the Sydney colony's first hospital and overflowing graveyards. 

In the episode Dr Fiona Starr from Sydney Living Museums retells colourful accounts of the colony’s first general hospital, better known as the Rum Hospital. It was built in 1816 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who saw an urgent need to maintain the health of the convict workforce. Peter Curson, Emeritus Professor in Population and Health at Macquarie University, describes the worst infectious diseases that struck the colony over the 19th century, from the measles outbreak that killed over a thousand children to the plague epidemic that caused panic and social conflict. And, City of Sydney Council historian, Dr Lisa Murray discusses the perennial problem of where to bury the dead in an era of incredibly high mortality. 

This podcast was recorded at the ‘Our Healthy Heritage’ seminar series hosted quarterly by the Australian and New Zealand Society of the History of Medicine.

Download or stream Pomegranate podcasts on iTunes or  Android, or listen online.