The Society had an outstanding turnout for its monthly lecture at the Elphinstone Hotel in Biggar. Almost fifty members and visitors came along to hear Dr Brian Moffat speak about the discoveries of Mediaeval Medicine made at Soutra Hospital. Dr Moffat started by telling the audience exactly where the Mediaeval Hospital at Soutra was located. It lies on high ground near the A68 approximately 12 miles south of Dalkeith , an unlikely place for a hospital. Even more unlikely when he described a 45ft snowdrift that he encountered up there one winter.
He mentioned the considerable size of the hospital that covered a greater area than all the modern Edinburgh hospitals! Some archaeologists originally thought the site was a Roman legionary fortress because of its sheer size. Dr Moffat said that it was the largest mediaeval hospital in Scotland and that it had been developed by the Augustinian order. This order boasted the finest doctors in the Middle Ages and Soutra was the finest hospital north of York. Regrettably much of the hospital buildings disappeared from the 16th century onwards as the Church of Scotland disapproved at that time of anything that had any connection with Catholicism.
The most fascinating part of the lecture was to be the part on mediaeval medicines. Dr Moffat explained that much of the work being done on the discoveries made at Soutra was of considerable interest to pharmaceutical companies both sides of the Atlantic. The monks apparently gave their patients bilberries to counteract E-Coli; cranberry juice apparently has similar properties. The monks also gave large quantities of watercress to deal with scurvy and stop people's teeth falling out. This theory was supported by the large quantity of human teeth recovered from the excavation. Dr Moffat also mentioned a tuber that on being dried out gave people fantastic energy and it helped to counteract hunger. Apparently this was very popular with the Scottish peasants who often went hungry.
A spectacular discovery relating to surgery was a medical compound including Opium and Deadly Nightshade that enabled the mediaeval surgeon to work on a patient for four days. Apparently in such lengthy operations the doctors used shunts to get rid of saliva and other wastes. Everybody was very impressed by this revelation especially as Dr Moffat had found a clubfoot that had probably been removed using this medicine.
Everybody thought that Dr Moffat's lecture was first rate and that was borne out by the length of question time and by the tribute to the quality of his lecture made by Ed Archer in his vote of thanks. Ed expressed the view that Dr Moffat would return to the Society in a few years time as there had been significant changes in knowledge since Dr Moffat had last spoke to the Society.