Public Health

What?

• Public health is the health of the entire population.
• It is regulated, maintained and promoted by the state.

1845

• Victorian Britain
• Movement from countryside to towns
• Government believed in the policy of laissez-faire and not interfering with people's lives.
• Towns and cities were overcrowded and dirty places.

Life expectancy

The Great Stink

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• The summer was very hot.
• There was no rain to wash untreated waste into the river.
• Water levels were low and the smell from the Thames was horrific.
• Belief in Miasma meant some panicked.

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• An effective, sewer system was built in London by Joseph Bazalgette.
• 83 miles of main sewers were built.

Court of King Cholera

John Snow

• After the 1848 epidemic he published a book saying that cholera was spread by dirty water and not through the air.

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• Snow collected information about the 700 deaths in his area.
• The one thing they all had in common was using the water pump in Broad Street.
• The pump handle was removed and people got water elsewhere.
• The disease lessened in Broad Street.

1848 Public Health Act

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• Allowed local councils to improve conditions in their own town if they wished and if they paid for it.
• Could force towns to take action over water supply & sewage.

Compulsory Vaccinations

1866

1875 Public Health Act

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• Real breakthrough as Act had more power.
• Local councils could be FORCED to provide clean water, and appoint Medical Officers of Health and Sanitary Inspectors.

Housing Act 1875
Councils allowed to knock down and replace bad housing.

Boer War

• During the Boer War 1899-1902, the Government found it difficult to find fit young recruits.
• 1 in 3 recruits were refused on medical grounds and this was more evidence on the need for reforms.

Liberal Reforms 1908

By 1910, men were living till 52 and women 55.
The reforms had added almost 10 years to people's lives!