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How Did Public Health in the 19Th Century Change? What Is Germ

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How Did Public Health in the 19Th Century Change? What Is Germ A Revolution in Medicine C1800-1900 How did public health in the 19th century change? What is germ theory? What can you see? What guesses can you make about the effects this will have on the health of people in Britain? Houses close to Pollution coming pollution as lack of from factories transport for travel Several families living in one house Overcrowded housing that Long was built working quickly and not hours in very well dangerous factories Drinking water still polluted by sewers Poor ventilation in Lack of fresh food houses and factories in cities What is public health? The health of the population as a whole, especially as the subject of government regulation and support. FACTORS FOR CHANGE There are 7 key factors. We will use these to discover change over time. Sometimes these factors HELP, sometimes they HINDER change. HOW could each FACTOR create change? . WAR SUPERSTITION AND RELIGION Sometimes medical procedures or hygiene were The setting up of medical schools and universities in medieval times where usually by religious improved as a result of lessons learnt in war such as groups but this helped further knowledge. hygiene in the Crimean War. GOVERNMENT COMMUNICATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Inventors developing things such the microscope in Some governments have insisted on change e.g. the Inventions such as William Caxton’s printing the Netherlands in the 1590s has allowed Liberals and their reforms or Labour and the NHS. press has allowed new ideas about medicine medical and hygiene to be spread fast. developments. INDIVIDUALS CHANCE Some people have pushed through ideas which seemed crazy to many people such as Edward Jenner and Sometimes medical and health improvements have his smallpox vaccination. been stumbled upon by accident e.g. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin. Population statistics Population in UK 1750 1900 7 Million 37 Million People living in towns 1750 1900 13% 87% Life expectancy Living conditions Illnesses/accidents • Victorians were good at collecting • Social surveys showed that whole • Young boys were forced to clean data. In Bethnal Green, London, families lived in one room, or in chimneys and came into contact 1842, rich people lived on average cellars liable to flooding. with gas and soot. Percivall Pott, an to 45, whereas labourers lived until • Children shared beds. English surgeon, identified scrotal they were just 16. • Toilets and water pumps were cancer as a problem for these boys. • In Manchester 57% shared by many families. • Young girls in match making of children died • In 1847, 40 people shared one factories suffered from Phossy-jaw before their room in Liverpool. caused by fumes from the 5th birthday. • People lived phosphorous. The jaw would be in back to eaten away, or glow in the dark, it We have already back housing. also caused brain damage. • No rubbish • Coal miners had pneumoconiosis, a collections . lung disease caused by inhaling dust. looked at this and • Textile factory machinery had no Food quality guards so arms were often caught in for all of these • No regulations. Problems machines. • Bakers added powdered chalk to There was no flour to make more money. compensation • Milk was watered down then in or chance of reasons, the added chalk powder to make it further work. white again. • William Luby saw a man mix brown paint with candle wax when Industrial government had making chocolate, he also saw men sweeping up sugar from the floor to make toffee. Towns to act to improve The Great Stink Contagious diseases public health in • In 1858 parliament had to leave London because the • Contagious disease was no respecter of wealth. exceptionally dry weather had combined with a build • In 1861 Prince Albert died of typhoid caught from the up of human and industrial waste. Without rain to sewers of Windsor Castle . the 19th century. wash it into the Thames it started to fester. • Other diseases such as; typhoid, typhus, diarrhoea, • Charles Dickens called the Thames a “deadly sewer” smallpox, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, whooping cough, and the fumes were terrible. measles and chickenpox all spread rapidly. • At this time many • Rickets was common, Known as the “English disease” still believed that was a crippling bone disease common in children. It bad air (miasma) was caused by a lack of calcium and fresh air and caused disease. sunlight. A clear indicator of malnutrition. • Cholera was the biggest killer with epidemics7 in 1831- 32, 1848, 1854 and 1866. The Cholera Cholera led to huge changes in the approach to public health in cities and towns. There were epidemics in 1831-32, 1848, 1854 and 1866. At the time nobody knew what caused it or how Cholera arrived in GB to cure it. In 131, 50,000 died. Sickness, diarrhoea, skin and nails blackened and the coma and in 1831. The death. People still thought that it was caused by miasma. symptoms were horrific UK deaths from Cholera John Snow and the discovery of the causes of Cholera and it spread quickly through overcrowded 1831-32 50,000 John Snow had a surgery in London. 1848 60,000 In 1849 he published a book arguing that cholera and filthy towns, killing 1854 20,000 was spread by dirty water rather than bad air. at an alarming pace. Medical opinion laughed at him and ignored him. In the first 10 days of the 1854 outbreak 700 people The cholera outbreak died in his locality. Snow mapped the locations of the deaths and found that they of 1848 was the worse all had one thing in common, water from a pump in Broad Street. and became an agent He also noticed that men in a nearby brewery who drank beer of change as people had not caught cholera. He got permission to remove the pump handle so that people demanded that had to go elsewhere. Immediately the disease in the area stopped. something be done. It was discovered that a cess pit less than one metre from the pump was leaking into the water supplies. The government was Careful scientific investigation had helped to find the cause of forced to act. cholera, long before germ theory was published. Snow’s discoveries helped to influence the Public Health Act of 1875 Public Health Acts and Sanitary Act of 1866. were introduced to improve living 8 conditions and health. Victorian Public Health What was cholera and why did it lead to Who as John Snow and what did he What did people first think of Snow’s What did Farr and Southwood Smith do? change? argue? Why did he argue this? ideas and why? How did this change and what did his ideas result in? Why is Bazalgette important? Why is Edwin Chadwick important? Why is Dr Barnardo significant? What did the 1848 Public Health Act say? Think about the link he made between What was the problem with it? poor living conditionUse and disease. the info and fill in the top line on Snow. You can then review the work of Farr, Southwood Smith, Chadwick, Bazalgette and Barnado. What did the Acts of 1866 and the Why were political parties thinking they What did the 1875 Public Health Act say Challenge Housing Act of 1875 say? needed to intervene in public health in and what was it a breakthrough? Was the role of the government of the 1867? individual more important in the improvement of public health? Victorian Public Health What was cholera and why did it lead to Who as John Snow and what did he What did people first think of Snow’s What did Farr and Southwood Smith do? change? argue? Why did he argue this? ideas and why? How did this change and what did his ideas result in? Why is Bazalgette important? Why is Edwin Chadwick important? Think Why is Dr Barnardo significant? What did the 1848 Public Health Act say? about the link he made between poor What was the problem with it? living condition and disease. What did the Acts of 1866 and the Why were political parties thinking they What did the 1875 Public Health Act say Challenge Housing Act of 1875 say? needed to intervene in public health in and what was it a breakthrough? Was the role of the government of the 1867? individual more important in the improvement of public health? Improvements in Public Health – Key Individuals Many people didn’t want government help when it came to improving conditions. A lot of people followed the idea of laissez-faire which meant that the government didn’t get involved with living and working conditions. There had been poor laws in Britain since Tudor times with each parish looking after its own poor. Farr and • William Farr helped make births, deaths and marriages registers compulsory in 1837 Southwood Smith which meant that the government could now have accurate numbers. • Thomas Southwood Smith was appointed physician to the London Fever Hospital in 1824. This allowed him to study diseases caused by poverty and the papers that he published on public health provided examples and data to support the work of Edwin Chadwick. Edwin Chadwick • He was secretary to the poor Law Commissioners from 1834 and he used statistical evidence to explore the link between ill-health and poverty. • He wrote the 1842, Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population which made the link between poor living conditions, disease and life expectancy. He, along with Southwood Smith, were the driving force behind the setting up of Health of Towns Association in 1844 and part of what became known as the “Clean Party”. • The “Clean Party” were those pushing for government action to improve conditions in towns.
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