A country

By Melissa Meehan
THEY are the pages of the past, an insight into a world so different to ours.
Jessie Cantwell carefully turns the pages of her great grandfather’s handwritten medical journals and it’s easy to see her excitement at owning a piece of Berwick’s history.
“I inherited the books on Tuesday,” Jessie says.
“I couldn’t sit still with excitement when they were handed to me.
“He was the first doctor in Berwick in the 1860s and to have his handwritten records, its something special.”
Jessie’s great grandfather Richard Stevenson was born in Pickering, Yorkshire in 1830.
He trained in London at the Society of Apothecris and worked at the St Thomas hospital in 1854 – about the same time as Florence Nightingale.
“My father always told us how he worked alongside Florence Nightingale,” she said.
“But I’m not so sure about that – all we know is that he was there around the same time as her.
He came to Australia as a ship’s surgeon in 1856 and lived on the goldfields where he married his wife, Anne Butcher in 1858.
The couple moved to Berwick in 1860, where he began practising.
They were also important in the foundation of Berwick’s Mechanics Institute.
“These books show who he cared for, their ailments and all the ingredients of the chemist stuff,” Jessie said.
“One of the books is also like a medical journal; it includes how to treat different ailments, like a medical dictionary. For instance, it goes into how to treat a fractured skull – it’s just amazing.”
Jessie hopes to give the books to the Pakenham or Berwick Historical Society and says she couldn’t think of anything better to do with the books.