Health resource pack

The Highlands has played an important role in the story of healthcare in the UK. On this page you can watch videos about the amazing Highlands and Islands Medical Service and the care of both mental and physical health in the past, look at examples of documents, and find some related activities!

Learn with Lorna videos about healthcare in the Highland Archive Service collections:

LWL 7: Health and wellbeing LWL 17: Tales from the asylum LWL 27: Further stories from asylum records LWL 36: Stories from the asylum 3 LWL 70: Shinty in the collections LWL 78: Further extracts from asylum records LWL 81: Food for rich and poor LWL 102: Mary Beith, herbalist and writer LWL 115: NHS Highland records LWL 155: The Highlands and Islands Medical Service LWL 228: Inverness football memories LWL 233: Midwives

Highlands and Islands Medical Service

The Highlands and Islands Medical Services Committee was created in 1912, after it was noticed that most crofters in the Highlands were not covered by the 1911 UK National Health Insurance Act. The Committee travelled around the Highlands and Islands, gathering information about the medical services in different areas. We can learn a lot about health in the Highlands and Islands from their reports. The Committee set out a case to reform the healthcare system and the Highlands and Islands Medical Service was created. It was the first state provided healthcare systems in the world and is considered to be the model for the NHS.

You can find out more about the Highlands and Islands Medical Service in this booklet.

Physical Health

The importance of having good physical health has been known for thousands of years. In archive collections, you can see how our knowledge of physical health has changed over the years: how herbal medicine contributed to scientific knowledge, how vaccinations started to be given, how we dealt with epidemics like cholera, and how hospitals and nursing developed. Our knowledge of the power of sport and physical activity as an aid to good health has also grown over the centuries.

A black and white photograph showing a two teams of women in football kits of the 1930s. A ball lies at their feet and a man in a suit is in the centre of the photograph.

Inverness Caledonian ladies football team, 1930s

A sepia tinted photograph of a Victorian two storey well-pointed cottage hospital building with additional buildings to the left of the picture. Text at the top of the image indicates it is Gesto Hospital, in Edinbane, Skye

Gesto Hospital, Skye, 1930s

A pale grey-blue documents bearing typed rules for nurses

'Rules for Nurses', 1901-1911

A sepia photograph shows men in Victorian attire holding a curling match on a frozen loch. There is a tree-lined hillside in the background and a caption indicating that the image depicts Lochaber versus Spean Bridge at Fort William

Lochaber vs Spean Bridge curling match, 1890s

A black and white photograph shows a woman in a white dress standing beside an array of fabric scarps and clothes hanging between trees

Clootie Well, n.d.

Mental Health

Our understanding of mental health has also grown and changed throughout history. Psychiatric hospitals – asylums as they were known for many years – have been around for a long time but the care and treatment they have given patients has changed. The main psychiatric hospital in the Highlands was known as Craig Dunain Hospital and it was built in 1864. Before it existed, people could be sent to Dundee or Edinburgh for mental health care. If they were rich they might be able to afford to go into private care, but if not they might be held in jail if there were no other facilities. This is what happened to Angus Smith, from Arisaig, in 1792. You can see the warrant used to confine him in jail below and read a typed copy here.

A black and white photograph showing a large and imposing Victorian hospital building with a large lawn and several cars in front

Craig Dunain, 20thC

A sepia photograph showing uniformed nursing staff seated and standing in formal poses. They are in an Edwardian hospital ward with beds along the sides and elaborate plant displays

Nursing staff at Craig Dunain, 1902

A document with 18th century handwriting in brown ink

Extract from the warrant to transmit Angus Smith, 1796

Health related activities

Make a list of as many sports you can think of. Then go and have a look online and see how many more you can find. What’s the most unusual one?
Pick a sport and research it. Make a poster with pictures and information. What is the aim of the game? How many people play it? Is it played all round the world? Do you need any equipment?
Someone being kind to you can really help your mental health. Why not use the spider diagram to note all the things you like about a family member or friend and give it to them to make them smile?
What equipment do you think a doctor needs to do his/her job? Why don’t you draw a picture of a doctor’s bag and fill it with all the items you can think of?