Using Hospital Records for Social History – The Case of Cornelia Platschart

My ancestor Maria Cornelia Platschart was born in Breda in 1861. Her mother, Cornelia Platschart, was unmarried. As described in a previous blogpost, I suspected Cornelia Platschart may have been a prostitute. I have since found more evidence in hospital records.

Hospital in Vlissingen, circa 1820. Credits: THA 1947, Zeeuws Archief (public domain)

Vlissingen hospital records

First admission, 19 June – 5 August 1846

On 19 June 1846, “Cornelia Plasschaard” was admitted to the hospital in Vlissingen, in the province of Zeeland. Her entry in the patient register shows she stayed in ward 6, and left the hospital on 5 August 1846.¹ Born 9 September 1820  (the register mistakenly shows 1819), Cornelia was 25 years old at the time.

Patient register, 1846

This source was indexed in “Zeeuwen Gezocht,” which includes many Zeeland records kept by the Zeeuws Archief. Whenever we find a record, we should look at its archival context. In this case, the record group of the hospital had other registers with patient information. I consulted the finding aid and ordered scans via the archives’ free scanning-on-demand service.

Of particular interest are the weekly reports of the population of the hospital, which also functioned as a nursing home, poorhouse, and orphanage. It gave daily totals for each class of residents but does not give individual details apart from the names of the people who were admitted or released. However, since the totals are given per day, we can see use the changes on the days of Cornelia’s arrival and departure to infer information about her.

Cornelia was the only patient admitted on 19 June 1846. The next day, the subcategory “syphilitische ziekten” [syphilic diseases] increased from 4 to 5. When Cornelia was released from hospital on 5 August 1846, the number of patients with syphilic diseases decreased from 3 to 2.² Cornelia must have suffered from such a disease.

Week report, 14 to 20 June 1846

The term “syphilic diseases” was used broadly for sexually-transmitted diseases, including syphilis. In those days before the invention of antibiotics, most such diseases were not curable, though the symptoms could be treated. Patients would be released from hospital when symptoms cleared, and re-admitted when they resurfaced. If we check the register, we see that all patients in ward 6 were young women, like Cornelia, which suggests they were treated for similar ailments.

Second admission, 17 January – 9 February 1851

Cornelia Platschart was admitted again on 17 January 1851 and released on 9 February 1851.³ As in 1846, the weekly reports indicate that Cornelia suffered from a syphilic disease. The number of patients suffering from syphillic diseases increased from 0 to 1 on the day of her arrival, and dropped back to 0 upon her departure.⁴

Patient register, 1851

Laws and ordinances

From 1848, the patient register recorded who paid for the hospital costs. The bill for Cornelia’s stay in 1851 was sent to the police.⁵ In this period, prostitution was legal, so the police involvement does not imply that her actions were criminal. To understand their role in Cornelia’s treatment, we need to look at laws and ordinances.

The Gemeentewet [municipal law] of 1851 gave municipalities a wide range of responsibilities. This included oversight of public health.⁶ Municipalities had the authority to enact local ordinances to fulfill their legal responsibilities.⁷

An undated note in a bundle of records relating to oversight of prostutition by the municipality that probably dates from shortly after the introduction of the Gemeentewet describes the situation in Vlissingen as follows:

There  are no houses of debauchery. However, there are several women who engage in prostitution. The existing ordinance does not extend to that, and a change shall be necessary for the sake of public health. I hereby send you a draft by the police commissioner.⁸

The ordinance regarding “public houses of debauchery and public women” (brothels and prostitutes) went into effect on 24 October 1857. It includes the following stipulations:

• Article 8: Every public woman shall receive a booklet from the police commissioner as proof of admission. This booklet shall be shown to the police commissioner every three months, and signed by him.
• Article 11: Before admission, every public woman shall undergo a medical examination, to be repeated weekly thereafter.
• Article 12: This medical examination shall be performed by a doctor to be appointed by the Mayor and Aldermen, and will take place at the house where these women live or reside.
• Article 16: The doctor shall immediately inform the police commissioner of any woman found to be infected, and shall immediately transport the infected woman in the hospital ward designated for that purpose. The booklet of that woman shal be temporarily held at the police station, only to be returned after written proof of the doctor who treated her that she is fully recovered, which shall be recorded in the booklet.⁹

Ordinance regarding public houses of debauchery and public women in Vlissingen, 1858

A blank copy of the booklet that prostitutes had to keep can be found in the records of the municipality of Vlissingen. The first page shows the proof of registration as public woman by the Vlissingen police, with room for the police commissioner’s signature. The form asks for the name, date and place of birth, and physical description of the woman, including any noticeable marks and her signature. The second page has space for the three-monthly signatures by the police commissioner. Pages three and further are for the signatures by the doctor when the woman was found healthy. The booklet has no designated place to note when the woman was found to be ill.¹⁰

The ordinance must be understood in the context of the municipality’s responsibility for public health, rather than from a concern about criminal or moral aspects of prostitution. In a harbor town like Vlissingen, the municipality accepted prostitution as inevitable. By ensuring weekly medical examinations of the women, and forcing infected women to receive treatment, the municipality minimized the risks to public health.

Conclusion

The combination of the hospital records and the ordinance suggests how Cornelia ended up in the hospital with the police paying for her stay. Although I have not been able to find the earlier ordinance that was in place in 1846 or 1851, similar regulations must have been in place for the bill for treatment of a sexually-transmitted disease to have been sent to the police. Cornelia Platschart must have worked as a licensed prostitute. During her weekly medical examination, the doctor determined she was infected with a sexually-transmitted disease. She was sent to the designated ward in the hospital, where she stayed until she was no longer symptomatic. She was released, and would have been free to continue to ply her trade.

Her work as a prostitute offers a possible explanation about how she ended up in Breda. Brothels and bars where prostitutes worked were often part of a large network in different cities. They would occasionally swap employees, to offer their clients fresh choices. It is possible Cornelia worked for a brothel that had such a deal with a Breda establishment. Or perhaps she knew women who moved to Breda through such an an arrangement, and followed her friends.

The records show that Cornelia was indeed a prostitute in 1851, and probably in 1848 too. This does not mean she was still a prostitute in 1861, when she gave birth to daughter Maria Cornelia who would become my ancestor. Cornelia was 41 years old by then.

This research did not get me any closer to uncovering the identity of the biological father of Maria Cornelia, but it certainly gave me a better understanding of the life of her mother Cornelia Platschart and the men in her life, one of the strategies to identify the father of an illegitimate child. It is possible one of her clients fathered her child and became my ancestor. I will keep digging to see what else I can find out about her life.