History Changes In Health & Medicine, c.500 to Present Day Flashcards
6. Public Health - Historical Context of the Ancoats
Describe the process of how the Industrial Revolution started and reached Manchester.
1. The factory system started with Richard Arkwright’s water frame. ( a textile machine that needed a water wheel to power it )
2. He opened his first factory in 1771. As competition grew in the development of machines for spinning and weaving cloth.
- These developments became known as the Industrial Revolution.
3. It was the development of the Boulton & Watt steam engine (1781) which mean that factories no longer needed a water wheel and therefore could be build anywhere.
- This brought the Industrial Revolution to Manchester.
4. Manchester was originally a small market town, surrounded by villages such as Ancoats. The first steam powered mill in Ancoats was Ancoats Bridge Mill (1791) and by 1816 there were 86 of such mills.
- These became the model for other mill complexes.
6. Public Health - Historical Context of the Ancoats
Describe some of the impacts the Indutrial Revolution had on Manchester.
1. The population of Manchester went from 84k in 1801 to 391k in 1851.
- It was this rise in population that led to poor living conditions.
2. Manchester’s cotton business thrived during this time period.
- City become known as Cottonpolis, one of the world’s largest producers of textiles.
3. Manchester became a huge commercial centre due to excellent transport links; the Rochdale and Ashton canals and the Liverpool-Manchester railway were bringing in American cotton.
- By 1871, Manchester became responsible for 32% of cotton textiles produced in the world.
4. As a result of this growth, people came to work in the mills and Ancoats was described as the world’s first industrial suburb.
- The average age of a worker was 17, the impact of all of this was that living condition were very poor.
6. Public Health - Key Features of Ancoats, Overpopulation
Explain how development in the Ancoats led to Overpopulation.
1. It was the development of canals in the area which changed it into a centre for textile industry and other industries.
- Rochdale canal opened in 1804, allowing for easier access to raw cotton. ( Led to large scale building of textile mills )
2. One of the oldest mills was Old Mill. At their peak they employed 1,300 people. There were 108 textile mills such as Beehive Mill that employeed 1000s of workers who needed to live nearby due to poor transport.
- As a result, Ancoats became on of the most densley populated places in Britian.
3. The 1841 census showed that it was common for 20 people to live in a house ment for a single family decades earlier.
- Between 1773 and 1821, the number of houses in the area rose from 3,446 to 17,257. By 1850, it was nearly 50,000.
6. Public Health - Key Features of Ancoats, Immigration
Explain how Immigration from Ireland and Italy to Manchester contributed to poor public health.
1. By 1851, around 50% of the men in the Ancoats were born in Ireland.
- Many of these men came to Manchester seeking a better life.
- However, many Irish immigrants faced discrimination.
2. By the end of 1840s, there were 4,000 Irish people living in Ancoats in less than 200 houses.
- One of these areas became known as ‘Little Ireland’
- Disease was much more prevalent due to these poor conditions.
3. Similarly, In 1835, thousands of Italians immigrants were met with the same fate.
- Antonio Valvona had a business selling ice cream and was responsible for inventine a more sanitary way of selling ice cream.
Manchester’s death rate ( 1849-51 ); 33 per 1000
Elsewhere; 22 per 1000
6. Public Health - Reasons for poor health
Explain how Overpopulation & poor water quality contributed to poor public health.
1. The housing built in the Ancoats was very poor quality due to overpopulation.
- Businessmen would try to fit as many houses on rectangles of land due to lack of rules surrounding buildings.
- Led to houses being 2-3 story brick terraced houses, one room deep, built back-to-back along narrow cobbled streets/couryards.
2. The basements were the most overcrowded and dirty of the accomodation as they were the cheapest to rent.
- Many builders added extensions, making the overcrowding and poor conditions worse
3. The streets filled with overcrowded houses had no proper drains or sewers. The most common form of toilet was a privy midden
- Sometimes these toilets would be shared by up to 30 families.
4. The shared taps on the street often had water taken from polluted sources.
- 55% of houses had no plumbing.
- 56% of streets had never been cleaned
- Making the area perfect for water borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
6. Public Health - utbreaks of cholera & typhus
Explain what led to the development of the hospital in Manchester.
1. The conditions in Ancoats led to outbreaks of diseas such as Cholere & Typhus fever.
2. The existing hospital, Manchester Royal Infirmary, was not designed to cope with a population of this size
- As a result, the dispenary was expanded to help people with typhus fever & a ‘House of Recovery’ was later added.
- These were still dependant on charitable donations
3. A separate dispenary was established in Ancoats in 1828 & treated 13k patients in its first 5 years.
Outbreaks of infectious diseases:
- 1824 - typhus
- 1832 - cholera - 675 dead
- 1849 & 1851 - Tuberculosis ( TB )
- 1854 - cholera
6. Public Health - Parliamentary Legislation
Describe how Dr James Philips contributed to bettering public health.
1. After experiences with 1832 cholera outbreak he published a report called;
- ‘The Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes Employed in the Cotton Manufacture in Manchester’
2. Through gather of statistics, he blamed overcrowding for the outbreak of cholera.
3. His reasearch influenced the development of the 1834 Poor Law Amendement Act & the 1848 Public Health Act.
6. Public Health Parliamentary Legislation
What did the 1848 Public Health Act achieve?
1. This law allowed local councils to improve conditions in their own towns if they wished to.
2. The Act encouraged local boards of health to be set up to appoint a medical officer, provide sewers & inspect lodging houses,
3. This all showed greater government responsibility for the health of the public.
6. Public Health - Parliamentary Legislation
Describe how Edwin Chadwick contributed to bettering public health.
1. He was a social reformer that focused on how disease affected poverty and focused his reasearch on Ancoats.
2. He concluded that better ventilation and sewerage would solve the problems causing disease.
- The Poor Law Commissioners reported that 57% of working class children were dying by 5.
3. His report in 1842 called ‘The Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population’ contributed to the passing of the 1848 Public Health Act
6. Public Health - Parliamentary Legislation
Describe how Friedrich Engles contributed to bettering public health.
1. He was a German social commentator who had working in a mill in Manchester
- He referred to conditions in Ancoats as ‘hell on earth’.
2. He blamed high death rates on the bad conditions workers lived in, as well as exploitation by factory owners.
3. In 1845 he published a book called ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ - which was very influencial in the debate about public health.
4. As a result of this criticisms, Manchester council sent 100 men to clear out Ancoats and in 12 days they cleared out 1,900 pits
5. Friedrich’s, Charles Rowley & Docter John Thresh’s work all led to houses in Ancoats getting fresh water and a flushing toilet.
- Privies were also set up that had to be emptied by the council.
6. Public Health - Long-term impacts of Public Health Legislations
State some of the Long-term impacts Public Health laws had.
1. The building of back-to-back houses was banned - 1844
2. Cellar dwelling were made illegal - 1853
3. Streets were properly paved and proper sewers installed - 1840s
4. New reservoirs ( large artificial lake ) were built e.g. longdale
5. By 1914, nearly all old courtyards & back-to-back houses were demolished
6. The Unhealthy Dwelling Committee formed in 1885 tore down the worst of the slum housing.
4. Advances in Medecical Knowledge
What are examples of medical care in early human history?
- There is evidence of successful operations carried out with flint tools in the Stone Age
- The Indus Valley civilisation were well aware of the importance of clean running water and sewers; there is even a structure identified as a huge public bath house in Mohen, Daro dating from arond 2500 BC
- The Greeks had asclepions (places of healing) that were Asclepius’, the god of healing, temples
- Bath houses and heating can be found in most Roman towns, for example, Vinderlanda in Northumberland
4. Advances in Medecical Knowledge
Why was there a lack of progress in medical knowledge after the Romans?
- A lot of the medical knowledge seemed to have been ‘lost’ during the Dark Ages after the Romans left
- Muslim writers (e.g Iba Sina) played an important translating the language of Anicent Greece and Rome into Arabic that eventually passed on to Western Europe
4. Advances in Medecical Knowledge
What is Hippocrates and Galen’s contributions to medecine?
- Doctors still take the hippocratic oath today and 60 texts of medecine are attributed to Hippocrates
- Galen was a follower of Hippocrates. Although prevented from working on people, Galen believed dissection was the best way to discover the inner workings of the human body
- Galen also placed great emphasis on listening to a patient’s pulse as a diagnostic tool
4. Advances in Medecical Knowledge
Why did the Church and Universities widely accept Galen’s ideas?
- Galen’s work arrived in Europe via Islamic texts and beliefs
- The first translations were made in Salerno, Italy, the first medical university dating around AD900, and rapidly became accepted as university medical texts
- Church leaders decided that his ideas fitted with religious beliefs as he frequently talks about ‘the Creator’
- Galen’s ideas spread rapidly around Europe and became accepted as medical orthodoxy
