Bulletin of the History of Medicine

While my Eastern European Jewish grandfather was bending over his sewing machine in a garment shop in the Whitechapel district of London, trying to decide whether to stay or to continue his journey to the United States, others just like him were similarly engaged in Glasgow. Kenneth Collins, a Glasgow physician and research fellow at the University of Glasgow's Centre for the History of Medicine, treats the "health and welfare" of the Jewish immigrant community in the Scottish city during the peak period of migration, 1860-1914. Immigration is a fertile field for historians of medicine and public health, as suggested by Howard Markel's, Amy Fairchild's, and my own U.S. studies and Lara Marks's book on London. While Collins does not offer here a fresh analytical scheme for scholarly analysis, he contributes to the existing literature by asking familiar questions in a new setting. He draws on a rich array of sources, government reports, data from synagogues and Jewish voluntary organizations, and Jewish newspapers.

The title of the book, Be Well! is the English translation of the Yiddish parting benediction, zei gezunt. Health was very important to Eastern European Jews because in the world they came from it was precious and rare. According to Collins, things were little better in Glasgow. Long hours of work in congested shops and inadequate rest and medical care in similarly crowded living quarters compromised the health and well-being of industrial workers of every ethnicity in Glasgow. A plentiful supply of robust workers was a great advantage to an industrial economy; unhealthy workers were not. Logically, it behooved Scottish authorities to create services and institutions to care for those suffering from infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and trachoma, as well as workers' needy families. However, most of the burden fell on local authorities, who lacked sufficient resources. In Glasgow, immigrant groups were left to care for their own.

Self-help had long been a credo for Jews in Europe, who hoped to deflect anti-Semitism by not imposing on the host community. Collins shows how such self-help in Glasgow was hampered by the small size of the Jewish community, which never exceeded 15,000 even during the peak period of immigration. The number of affluent Jews positioned to make large charitable contributions was insufficient to support a Jewish hospital, nor could the Jewish community maintain an old-age home until the mid-twentieth century. Still, assimilated Jews such as those in Glasgow's Garnethill Synagogue endeavored to help the poorer, more recent arrivals moving into the immigrant enclave around Gorbals, south of the River Clyde.

Collins also shows how a small Jewish community such as Glasgow's had to negotiate even ritual observance, which was not true of the larger communities. What Glasgow's Jews could not provide to their own because of insufficient numbers and affluence, they sought through negotiation with the non-Jewish [End Page 142] community. Although Jews received sound medical treatment, many were troubled by the absence of kosher food in Glasgow institutions. Finally, in 1914 the Merryflatts Poorhouse agreed to a kosher kitchen under rabbinical supervision. Still, other institutions such as the Victorian Infirmary would not allow kosher food brought from Merryflatts or elsewhere, denying that Jews wanted anything other than the "ordinary food" (p. 92).

If resources for assistance were in short supply, Glasgow's Jewish community nevertheless succeeded in maintaining a high level of health and hygiene, especially among the young. Collins cites a 1911 report attributing the lower instances of certain infectious diseases among Jewish children in Glasgow to the care they received from their mothers, as well as the services made available by Jewish organizations, concluding: "The women of Glasgow might learn a good deal from Jewish mothers" (p. 79). However hard mothers might try, though, the infant mortality rate among Glasgow Jews was high...