Changes in Public Health

Question 1

What were the 1840s Improvement Acts?

Answer 1

Local authorities given power over new builds, sewerage, and cellar dwellings.
1842 - Leeds, 1844 - Manchester, 1845 - Nottingham & St. Helens.
Showed the beginning of local authorities taking action.
Had the potential to lesson overcrowding and therefore reduce the spread of disease.
Permissive.
Inconsistently enforced, and many new builds didn’t adhere to regulations.
People were kicked out of their homes but weren’t provided anywhere else to live.

Question 2

What was the Metropolitan Building Act?

Answer 2

Passed 1844.
All new builds had to be within 30 feet of a sewer and had to be connected to it.
Gets rid of waste efficiently.
Lack of building inspectors meant that this wasn’t enforced.
Only applied to new builds not existing ones.

Question 3

What were the Common Lodgings Housing Acts?

Answer 3

Passed 1851 & 1853.
All lodging houses had to be registered and inspected.
Poorly drafted and rarely enforced.
Act meant that they couldn’t be overcrowded, had to have a high standard, and be in line with regulations.
Not enough accommodation if lodging houses aren’t overcrowded.

Question 4

What was the Nuisance Removal Act 1855?

Answer 4

Local authorities could combat overcrowding, poor sewage etc. using fines and prosecution.
Decentralisation.
Permissive.
No new properties for those forced out of their homes.

Question 5

Wat was the Local Government Act?

Answer 5

Passed 1858.
Set out model by-laws for housing.
568 towns made boards in the 10 years after the Act.
Local governments taking action - may have made poor by-laws.

Question 6

What was the Sanitary Act?

Answer 6

Passed 1866.
Limited the use of cellars for occupation.
Meant people weren’t living in poor conditions - but they had no where to go.
Limited the use, but didn’t prohibit it.

Question 7

What was the Artisans and Labourers Dwelling Act?

Answer 7

Passed 1868.
Local councils could force landlords to fix problems.
If they didn’t then councils could buy the house and pull it down.
This meant the tenants were homeless.
Did influence landlords to make repairs.
Rate payers didn’t have to pay.

Question 8

What was the Artisans and Labourers Dwelling Improvement Act?

Answer 8

Passed 1875.
Councils could abolish districts of poor housing.
No provision made for new housing.

Question 9

What was the Housing Act?

Answer 9

Passed 1919.
Created council houses.
They had long waiting lists.
Meant people were able to live in good conditions.
Rate payers didn’t want to have to pay for other people’s homes.
Building houses quickly and privately meant they were often poor quality.

Question 10

Who was Benjamin Jesty?

Answer 10

A farmer from Devon.
Noticed that him and his milkmaids who had had cowpox didn’t get smallpox so he infected his family with cowpox to stop them getting small pox.
First inoculation in 1774.

Question 11

Who was Edward Jenner?

Answer 11

Wanted to prove that someone that had cowpox couldn’t ger small pox. Tested it on an 8y/o, it worked and vaccination was created.

Question 12

Why was there opposition to vaccination?

Answer 12

No evidence to support why it worked, it just did.
Religious groups thought smallpox was a punishment for sinning.
Doctors who did inoculation wanted a monopoly but Jenner published his work for free.
People thought the government was controlling them.

Question 13

How did the government react to vaccination?

Answer 13

Passed the Vaccination Act 1840 - People could be vaccinated for free - permissive and had little uptake.
Vaccination Act 1853 - People had to vaccinate their children or were fined £1.
Vaccination Act 1871 - Local health boards had to appoint a vaccination officer and fines became 20 shillings.

Question 14

What were the Medical Officers for Health?

Answer 14

Liverpool Sanitary Act 1946 created the role in Liverpool.
Public Health Act 1875 made it necessary for districts to appoint a medical officer.
They would: Tackle communicable disease, take responsibility for water supply, sewerage, paving, housing, etc., they were responsible for monitoring infectious disease, fever hospitals, and burials, and they regulated markets, offensive trades, and slaughterhouses.
By 1888 all districts with populations over 50,000 had to have a MOH who was a qualified doctor with a diploma in a sanitary science, state medicine or public health.

Question 15

What was the Education Act 1906?

Answer 15

Free school meals for poor childres.
Helped reduce malnutrition and so reduced related illness (scurvy).
Healthier children were less likely to suffer from common colds.

Question 16

What was the Education Act 1907?

Answer 16

School medical service created.
Grants for schools to make these from 1912.
By 1935 there were 1650 clinics.
Helped symptoms to be picked up quickly and vaccines could be easily doled out.

Question 17

What was the Children and Young Person’s Act?

Answer 17

Passed 1908.
Children made protected persons. Parents could be prosecuted for neglect.
Children’s homes could be inspected.
Juvenile courts and prisons created.
Children under 14 couldn’t go into pubs.
Children under 16 couldn’t by cigarettes.
Meant children were more safe and secure.

Question 18

How did George Peabody influence housing?

Answer 18

A London-based American banker who founded a trust to provide model dwellings for London’s poor, first block opened in 1864 and had toilets, baths and laundry facilities. By 1882 the trust housed 14,600 people in 3,500 dwellings which had risen to over 8000 dwellings with 33000 people by 1939.

Question 19

How did Titus Salt influence housing?

Answer 19

A wealthy mill owner moved his factory and workers out of the city into a purpose built village. There were strict rules which the workers had to follow: they couldn’t join unions, there was to be no pub and washing couldn’t be hung out on Sundays.

Question 20

How did Octavia Hill influence housing?

Answer 20

Renovated cottages and let them out at low prices, by the 1870s she had over 3000 tenants. She checked up on her tenants’ habits and thought that the poor should be encouraged to be self-sufficient.

Question 21

How did Ebenezer Howard influence housing?

Answer 21

Wrote a book which had the idea that people should live in harmony with nature. Started the garden city movement and the first garden city was built in 1903 (Letchworth), the second in 1920 (Welwyn).

Question 22

How did William Lever influence housing?

Answer 22

Had a model village built for his workers, they had all the amenities and there were welfare schemes and entertainment, but there were strict rules of behaviour.

Question 23

How did Chadwick change public health?

Answer 23

He was convinced of the connection between disease and poverty.
Created an enquiry 1952 which was heavily biased towards reform within London’s poor.
The enquiry concluded that whatever the cost of reform was would be cheaper than the cost of pauperism which would increase due to poor sanitary conditions
The Tory government rejected this and set up a Royal Commission on the Health of Towns, which came to the same conclusions as Chadwick.
This prompted the government to create the General Board of Health which Chadwick was on.
Some of the reforms which were made were the supply of water to dwellings, water closets in all homes, installation of egg-shaped pipes to carry sewage, and shallow drinking wells were abolished.
General Board of Health was disliked because of its imperious tone, Chadwick was hugely impatient and would be annoyed with slow workers.

Question 24

How did John Snow change public health?

Answer 24

Dr Snow had singlehandedly fought a Cholera Epidemic in Newcastle 1831
He became increasingly convinced cholera was waterborne.
In 1853 he was working in Soho struggling to contain Cholera and he suspected a pump and he got the authorities to lock it and the number of Cholera deaths dropped dramatically.
His theory had evidence: 535 people in a workhouse got their water from a different pump and only 5 died from Cholera.
A widow that lived in Hampstead had water brought to her from this pump and died of Cholera and non of her neighbours did.
However despite the evidence he was not believed.
A larger study by John Simon covered some 500,000 Londoners which confirmed Snow’s theory but it still took another 14 years for the establishment to accept that Cholera was waterborne

Question 25

How did Joseph Bazalgette change public health?

Answer 25

Metropolitan Board of Works created with Bazalgette as its chief engineer.
He made plans to make the sewage system so that it didn’t empty into the Thames and instead was taken to the tidal Thames so the sewage would be taken out to sea.
This was only passed by parliament due tot he Great Stink of 1858.
The sewers were made into large, egg-shaped pipes.

Question 26

How did Marie Stopes change public health?

Answer 26

She provided practical family advice.
Some poorer families would have up to 14 children and this meant that most of these children would be malnourished.
There was a requirement for information about contraception however this was illegal.
In 1913 Stopes wrote Married Love which provided straightforward, practical, detailed advice and other of her works were distributed freely to the poor.
She opened a Mother’s Clinic in Holloway in 1921, this was run by midwives and supported by doctors which gave contraceptive advice and she gradually opened more clinics in Leeds (1924), Belfast (1936) and Cardiff (1937).
Many opposed Stopes especially Catholics.
The decrease in births meant that the children were better cared for which improved public health