Changes in Public Health Flashcards
Successes of the 1848 public health act
By the beginning of 1850, 192 towns had asked for new public health regulations to be applied - act had been applied to 32 of them
By the end of 1853, this rose to 284 petitions and 182 towns where the act had been applied
Why is the public health act important?
First demonstration of grand scale state intervention concerning the health of the people
failures of the public health act
by the end of 1854, only 182 boards had been applied to England, covering 2million people out of a population of 18 million
In Lancashire, only 400,000 of its 2.5 million people were living under some sort of public health board
Of the 187 towns in England and Wales, only 29 had powers of draining and cleansing in the hands of a board, 30 had no powers over public health because they were in the hands of independent commissioners and 62 had no public health authority
City of leeds improvement act
Housing
1842
Gave councils the authority to:
- Lay and operate a sewerage system
- Organize public cleansing
- Manage smoke pollution
- Introduce building regulations
Nuisance removal act
Hosuing
1855
- Gave local authorities power to combat overcrowding as a nuisance with fines and prosecution
Artisans’ and Labourers’ dwelling act
1868
Gave councils power to force a landlord to repair an insanitary house and if not, councils could buy it and pull it down
Sanitary act
1866
- Placed limitations on the use of cellars for occupation
George Peabody
- Founded the Peabody Trust to provide model dwellings for the London Poor
- The first block of 57 dwellings (flats) opened in Spitalfields in 1864 and contained water closets, baths and laundry facilities
- Larger estates were built in Bermondsey, Chelsea, Islington, Poplar, Shadwell and Westminster
- By 1882, the Trust was housing more than 14,600 people in 3,500 dwellings
- By 1939- had over 8000 dwellings, housing over 33,000 people
Octavia Hill
Brought up run-down artisans’ cottages and renovated them by ensuring they were repaired, cleaned, decorated, connected to sewers and provided clean water - let them at low rents for the poor
By mid 1870’s she had over 3,000 tenants
William Lever
Found a new site for his soap-making business alongside a model cottage built for his workers
Between 1899 and 1914 - some 800 houses were built at Port Sunlight in Merseyside together with allotments, a cottage hospital, schools, a concert hall, an open air swimming pool and a church
Lever introduced welfare schemes
Permissive Vaccination act
1840
Anybody could be vaccinated for free by a poor law medical officer - only widely available vaccinator
1st compulsory vaccination act
1853
Made it obligatory for parents to have their children vaccinated for smallpox within 3 months of birth - if parents failed to comply, they were fined £1 which went towards the poor rate
2nd compulsory vaccination act
1871
Made it obligatory for local boards of health to appoint vaccination officers and imposed fines of 25 shillings on parents who refused to have their child vaccinated, with imprisonment for those who did not pay the fine
Housing act
1919 Housing Act – government subsidies were to be given to local councils and private builders to enable them to build affordable housing for people on low incomes – called council houses – gardens, piped water, inside lavatories
TB pasteurisation
1922, Ministry of health ordered the pasteurisation of milk
1934 – act allowed local authorities to make free/subsidised pasteurised milk available to schoolchildren
By 1937 – milk provided to 3.2 million children
TB Oldham
- LMoH ordered leafleting of all houses’, stressing TB was highly infectious and could be transmitted in the spit of an infected person
- forbade spitting in public spaces/ railway carriages
- local authority would disinfect houses of TB sufferers
- encouraged the burning of handkerchiefs used by sufferers
TB Brighton
The local medical officer of health issued leaflets urging people to only spit into bowls provided
What happened to TB as a result?
& Sanatoria
1882 - TB bacillus had been isolated
1911 - 84 sanatoria in the country (8000 beds) providing fresh air, sunlight, good food
The Education (Provision of Meals) Act
1906
local authorities could use public money to provide free school meals for the children of needy parents
The Education (Administrative Provisions) Act
1907- set up a school medical service ran by local authorities
By 1935- there were 2,300 doctors, 5,300 school nurses and 1,650 school clinics providing medical treatment
The Children and Young Persons’ Act
1908
- children made ‘protected persons’ prosecution of neglectful or cruel parents
- All children’s homes were to be registered and inspected
- No cigarettes to be sold to those under 16
Juvenile courts and remand homes set up to separate children from adult offenders
What was the significance of Marie Stopes in the development of public health in Britain, and what were her key contributions?
- pioneering figure in women’s health and family planning in early 20th-century Britain
- publication of her book “Married Love” in 1918, which advocated for birth control and sexual health education
- founding of Britain’s first birth control clinic in Holloway, North London 1921, which provided women with access to contraception and reproductive health services - run by midwives supported by visiting doctors
- Clinic not only gave face-to-face contraceptive advice but taught mothers how to use different methods of contraception
What was the significance of John Snow in the development of public health in 19th-century Britain?
- pioneering physician and one of the founders of modern epidemiology
- third outbreak of cholera in 1853 - Snow working in Soho
- Suspicious of broad street pump - persuaded authorities to lock the pump handle - number of deaths in soho fell dramatically
- Conducted careful observation and interviews - 535 people lived near a local workhouse close to the broad street pump but got their water from another source - only 5 died from cholera
- Seven workmen who lived outside the area abut worked near broad street and drank from the pump - all died
Local Government Act
1888
All medical officers of health in districts with a population of over 50,000 had to be qualified doctors holding a diploma in sanitary science, state medicine or public health
Edward Jenner
1788 - aimed to prove that someone with cowpox could not catch smallpox
1796 - conducted experimentation from a dairymaid - took pus from Sarah’s blisters and rubbed scratches onto James Phipps - boy developed a fever but was well again - Jenner established that cowpox could be passed from human to human
- Testes whether cowpox gave immunity to smallpox - variolated the boy with smallpox - suffered no effects - 23 other people, none caught smallpox
1798 - Published his results, parliament gave him £30,000 to establish vaccination clinic in London
