19th Century Medicine: public health

Question 1

What were the symptoms of cholera?

Answer 1

Diarrhoea, sickness, dehydration, blue skin

Question 2

How was cholera spread?

Answer 2

Through person-to-person contact or contaminated water

Question 3

Why did cholera mainly affect the poor?

Answer 3

Slums, workhouses and asylums had lots of people living very close to each other, sharing the water supply

Question 4

Who published his Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Classes in 1842?

Answer 4

Edwin Chadwick

Question 5

What did Edwin Chadwick discover about life expectancy in 1842?

Answer 5

People in cities had a much lower life expectancy (15 in Liverpool) than people in the countryside (38)

Question 6

When did the government introduce the first Public Health Act?

Answer 6

1848

Question 7

What were the provisions of the first Public Health Act?

Answer 7

Local councils were encouraged to collect taxes to pay for public health improvements, if they had the support of local tax-payers

Councils were allowed to appoint medical officers of health

Question 8

Why did the 1848 Public Health Act make little difference to people’s health?

Answer 8

It was not compulsory

Question 9

How did John Snow think cholera was spread?

Answer 9

Dirty drinking water

Question 10

How did John Snow investigate deaths from cholera?

Answer 10

He plotted the deaths on a street map

Question 11

What did John Snow discover when he plotted the deaths from cholera near his doctor’s surgery?

Answer 11

The deaths were centred around the water pump on Broad Street

Question 12

Why did workers at a local brewery near Broad Street NOT die from cholera?

Answer 12

They drank beer, not water, and the brewery had its own water supply

Question 13

What did John Snow do when he realised why people were dying from cholera on Broad Street?

Answer 13

Removed the handle from the water pump

Question 14

In what year did John Snow present his ideas to Parliament?

Answer 14

1855

Question 15

What was the ‘Great Stink’ of 1858?

Answer 15

In a hot summer, the water levels of the River Thames fell and exposed sewage, creating a smell reaching Parliament

Question 16

How did Parliament respond to the Great Stink?

Answer 16

They approved the building of a modern sewer system in London

Question 17

In what year was Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer system in London finished?

Answer 17

1875

Question 18

What was the limitation of John Snow’s work?

Answer 18

He could not explain WHY dirty water led to cholera

Question 19

When was John Snow’s work proved correct, and by whom?

Answer 19

1883 - Robert Koch

Question 20

What approach did the government have to public health before the second half of the 19th century?

Answer 20

‘Laissez-faire’: it was not their responsibility to interfere in the way people lived

Question 21

What happened in 1867 which changed the attitudes of government towards public health?

Answer 21

All men were given the right to vote

Question 22

When did the government pass the second Public Health Act?

Answer 22

1875

Question 23

Describe THREE provisions of the 1875 Public Health Act

Answer 23

Any three from:

City authorities had to provide clean water

Sewage had to be disposed of to prevent water from being polluted

Public toilets had to be built

Every city had to appoint a public health officer

Inspections of lodging houses

Public parks provided for exercise

Street lighting to prevent accidents

The quality of food in shops would be checked