Newly available: The papers of Bonté Elgood (1870-1960): Pioneering Woman Doctor in Egypt

Papers held in the Wellcome Library relating to the life and medical career of Bonté Elgood (née Amos) have now been catalogued and are available for research. They can be ordered online through the Wellcome Library’s catalogue (ref PP/ELG). The papers relate to Bonté’s remarkable medical career that took place largely in Egypt where she practicised from 1902 until she was forced to leave during the Suez crisis of 1956.

Bonté was the daughter of Sheldon Amos (1835–1886), an academic lawyer and British judge in the Egyptian High Court and Sarah Maclardie Amos (1840/41–1908) a political activist. Bonté and her brother Maurice, who went on to become Sir Maurice Amos (1872–1940) a Judicial Advisor to the Egyptian Government, were born in London but had an unusual childhood and education. In 1880 she and Maurice went with their parents to Australia for their father's health. Finding the country uncongenial, they set out to return to England. However, when they reached Egypt, Sheldon Amos was invited by Lord Dufferin, British adviser to the Porte, to be his legal adviser, and they remained in the country.

Bonté returned to England at the turn of the century and did her clinical studies at the London School for Medicine for Women at the Royal Free Hospital, and was taught by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (whose daughter Louisa was a friend and fellow-student) where she qualified in 1900. Returning to Cairo in 1901 she set up in private practice and also worked at Port Said as medical officer to the Quarantine Board of Egypt responsible for the health of pilgrims from Mecca. Fluent in Arabic, she was the first woman to be appointed for service by the Egyptian Government. She worked here for two years in the Quarantine hospitals at El-Tor where she observed many infectious diseases, including dysentry on which she wrote several papers. She married a soldier, Percival Elgood, in 1907 then director of the Police School in Cairo and later Controller at the Ministry of Finance. They lived in Heliopolis until his death in 1941.

In 1911 she founded a training school for Egyptian midwives and went on to develop a scheme to send Egyptian women for medical training in London. What began as administration of three schools with 600 female pupils grew to 106 schools with 20,000 students by 1923. The training school later developed into a hospital with a school for nurses as well as midwives attached to it and she was an active member of the board until she left the country in 1956. Her departure from Egypt was prompted by the Suez crisis - all British nationals were made to leave Egypt and following ten days in detention Bonté escaped with just a suitcase (her diary speaks of her sadness as she had to leave her beloved cat behind). After spending some time with friends in Cyprus she returned to London where she died in Chelsea aged 86 in 1960.

Bonté was awarded the OBE and the CBE, the Order of the Nile Third Class of which she was first woman ever to earn an honour for public service by an official Egyptian agency. She received the Médaille de la Reconnaissance Francaise 3me Class for her services to Allied troops in Cairo and throughout Europe. She also received a silver medal from the Union des Femmes de France, and a Red Cross Medal for distinguished war service in 1946.
The papers were donated to the library by Elgood's great-niece Ruth Hawthorn in 2011. Largely a collection of personal papers, they are rich in the detail of colonial life in Egypt.

Elgood's papers are available to registered Wellcome Library readers after the completion of an Archives and Manuscripts readers’ undertaking. Some items are currently undergoing conservation and are unavailable. Readers should consult the online catalogue for more information.

A collection of related interest is the archive of Lilias Hamilton (ref PP/HAM), a pioneering woman physician who worked in Afganistan. Readers may also find the Wellcome Library’s Women in Medicine Sources Guide useful.

Image: Bonté and Floss.  Port Said, 1917 (from PP/ELG)
Author: Sharon Messenger

This is a public service announcement…

and some benefit will be gained by reading on… trust me. Yesterday I attended a programme of public health information films The Cinema of Disease held at the Open City Docs Fest, which is taking place in and around UCL 21st-24th June.

As a panel member, I had the opportunity to watch the films ahead of time and in fact it was no hardship to watch them again at the screening. They provided a fascinating journey with illustrations of the evolving production aesthetics of this genre. Science was in evidence and we all felt that we had learnt something we never knew (often with the benefit of imaging techniques using, for example, microscopy to make the hidden seen).

At the end, a lively discussion ensued facilitated by Claire Thomson, lecturer in Scandinavian Film & Head of Department; well do public information films have a role today? As of the 31st March this year, the coalition government closed down the Central Office of Information which became the successor to the war-time Ministry of Information in the UK. The UK-government appears to have no appetite to get involved in high profile health awareness. The devolution of healthcare means that we are more likely to seek health-care advice from the Internet. Fellow panel member Deenan Pillay (UCL Research Department of Infection) explained that clinical research in this area is moribund. In fact it was argued that greater public awareness has come from ‘seeding’ health messages within a less ‘high-brow’ context such as in soap operas – a good example of this was cited, having been scripted into the character of Mark Fowler in EastEnders; originally conceived no doubt to reflect the ‘real’ world but having a positive impact on awareness of this condition none-the-less. Cathryn Wood (Innovation Manager, DMI) added that this latter technique and the use of story, a narrative with an emotional hook, has proved instrumental in addressing maternal behaviour and infant mortality of 20% in some areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Some health campaigns were remembered quite fondly, but there was a sense of unease around whether they were ever evidence-based; was the health campaign around HIV/AIDs; Aids Monolith, 1987 instrumental in changing behaviour? An example mentioned in the discussion, which did lead to changes in infant mortality; Life is a miracle, 1996 had a celebrity presenter, Anne Diamond, who was well known at the time and who gave added poignancy as she had lost her son to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

Public health information films are part of the conversation relating to health and well-being and part of the public understanding of science and biomedicine; it is an important part of the conversation. We have been digitising our moving image and sound collection to make this kind of material more freely available; films can be found in the Wellcome Film resource and on our YouTube channel - there are over 2000 subscribers and a growing number of lively comments to the films, particularly those relating to public health. Another port of call is the National Archives which has a selection of public information films online. There are many other online resources and I have taken the hard work out of sourcing these films by providing links so you can replicate the experience of watching the programme yourself.

You Have To Say It (On Doit Le Dire) O’Gallop / 1918 / France / 5’

Unhooking The Hookworm 1920 / USA /10’

[Mind Your Health (Beregi Zdorov’e) Aleksandr Medvedkin 1929 / USSR / 9’ this was not screened]

Preventing The Spread Of Disease 1940 / USA /10'

Tony Bacillus & Co. Colm O’Laoghaire / 1946 / Ireland / 6’








Surprise Attack Crown Film Unit / 1951 / UK / 10’











Unseen Enemies Michael Clarke / 1960 / UK / 27’
Unfortunately, no online copies are in evidence; a 16mm print copy is the Moving Image & Sound collection and can be viewed onsite. There may be a number of versions as the catalogue and programme state 1959/60; from memory, the date on the screening copy credits was 1974.

Author: Angela Saward

An outbreak of Mad Cow Disease in the archives

The Wellcome Trust ’s mission is to foster human and animal health. Sometimes these two areas converge. The BSE crisis of the late 1990s was one such occurrence.

Sir John Pattison, former vice-provost of University College London School of Health, and National Health Service Head of Research and Development, was right at the centre of this crisis. As Chairman of the Government’s Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) from 1995-1999, Sir John had a unique view of the political decisions taken at this time.

SEAC provided advice on a number of issues, including the safe consumption of meat and milk, and the suitable treatment of animal carcasses by slaughterhouses. The committee remained in operation until 30 March 2011, when it was replaced by the ACDP Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Risk Assessment Subgroup.

In December 2010, Sir John Pattison presented a memoir of his time in charge of SEAC to the Wellcome Library , along with a set of committee minutes, and supporting documentation. The minutes, and the documentation that Sir John used in compiling this memoir are now available to Wellcome Library researchers. The memoir itself will be available in the near future, once we have put in place facilities to allow user access to born-digital archival material.

The supporting documentation includes correspondence with politicians, members of the public, and the families of patients with Creutzfeldt–Jakob Disease (CJD). There are also press releases issued on behalf of the committee and other bodies, as well as information on potential tests for, and causes of, CJD.

More information on can be found via the Archives and Manuscripts online catalogue. The reference for this collection is PP/JPN .

The SEAC website can be accessed through the UK Government Web Archive .