Chadwick
Cholera was the Modern plague. First struck in 1831, following year it killed 21,000. More epidemics in 1848, 1854 and 1866. Barrels of tar were burned on streets as the cause was thought to be bad air or miasma. In fact it was caused by a germ (these were not known about before 1860s) which attacks guts causing fever, diarrhoea and sickness. Death was very speedy.
Chadwick was instructed by the Government to investigate how people’s lives made them so ill. His 1842 Report called ‘A report on the sanitary condition of the labouring population’ highlighted how people were living in slums that were filthy and overcrowded often tens of people sharing a single toilet.
Chadwick made clear that Government should make laws to clean towns and cities of filth, bad housing and pipe in clean water. Chadwick also suggested that proper cemeteries should be organised on the outskirts of towns and Medical Officers of Health should report on what people died from. He made it clear that preventing illness and death would save money in the long term.
The CLEAN Party agreed with Chadwick and saw it was time for change. The DIRTY Party said his ideas were too nosey, interfered with people’s lives, and they stressed it was the choice of ordinary people to choose how they lived. This ‘leave it be’ idea was called Laissez-faire meaning just that: leave it be.
LINKS | 19th C Industrial Revolution: Public Health | Chadwick | Public Health Acts | Snow & Cholera |
LINKS | 20th C: Philanthropists | Wartime | The Liberals | The NHS | Bevan | Beveridge | Anatomy | Surgery |