Social History (Public Health)

Grace Bluefeld, Eric Slawter,

Wes McDowell, Greg Alfaro

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Disease Found in the Victorian Age

-Disease occurred most often in the laboring classes.

-Decomposing plants and animals caused air polution
which was unhealthy for those living in and around it.
-The living quarters in the British Kingdom were close and
overcrowded.
-Thus causing disease from unsanitary situations.
-Disease was found to prevail in the lowest districts of
the urban areas.

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Disease Found in the Victorian Age
-It has been found that disease links to physical evidence.
- When physical evidence is removed the strength and
occurrence of disease is lowered.
- Where the removal is believed to be complete, disease
almost entirely disappears.
- The first major disease outbreak in the Victorian Age:
- 1831–1833
- Influenza Outbreak
-The second major outbreak in the Victorian Age:
- 1836–1842
- Influenza, Typhus, Typhoid and Cholera Outbreak
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 Steps to Improve Conditions
-First focus is to remove all waste from dwellings
and roads, and to improve the cleanliness of the
water supply.
-Improving sewer/drainage systems will create self
cleaning, thus reducing expenses of hand labor.
-Waste held in water is cheaply/easily moved
away from towns.
-Loss and pollution by waste to natural streams
can be avoided.

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 Steps to Improve Conditions

-Adoption of geological areas for waste

management/disposal is important to success/cost.
-Caution should be taken for new local public projects.
They need to be created run by educated officials
who fully understand science and civil
engineering.
-10-15% of cost for drainage can be saved.

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 Steps to Improve Conditions
-Based on estimate of expense to structurally
alter one-third of the tenements, could end up
saving one million and a half sterling.
-Appoint district medical officer who is separate
from private business with “special qualifications
and respinsibilities” to create sanitation
guidelines.
-All is necessary to improve the moral attitude
of the population.

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 Physical Conditions of
Textile Worker

-“Complexion is sallow and pallid—with a peculiar

flatness of feature.”
-Low stature, the average height is five foot six.
-Limbs are slender and ungraceful.
-General bending in the legs.
-“Girls and women walk lamely or awkwardly,
with raised chests and spinal flesures.”

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 Physical Conditions of
Textile Worker

-Flat feet with down-tread, extremely different

from regular motion of the foot and ankle.
-Hair is thin and straight, many men had little
beard in patches of few hairs,
-“A spiritless and dejected air, a sprawling and
wide action of the legs, and an appearance,
Taken as a whole, giving the world but ‘little
assurance of a man,’ or if so, ‘most sadly
cheated of his fair proportions…’”

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Important Medical
Individuals in
Victorian Medicine
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Born in Whitechapel
In 1836. Elizabeth Garrett
Anderson promoted
employment for women.
She fought the University
of London to let her in for
medical school (she lost).
The first woman, after
Elizabeth Blackwell, to have
her name on the British
medical register.
Francis Galton

Francis Galton was

Born in Birmingham in
1822. He wrote English
Men of Sciences: Their
Nature and Nurture (This
started the nature vs.
nurture debate). Galton
died in Haslemere, Surrey
in 1911.
Joseph Lister (The Elder)
Joseph Lister (The Elder)
was born at the Upton House
in West Ham in 1827. Lister
helped create less infectious
hospital living and prevented
many “hospital diseases.” He
had immense medical
Success. He died at Walmer
on the Kent coast in February
1912.
Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale was born
on May 12, 1820 at Villa La
Columbia in Florence. She was
named after her birth city. She
received many merits and awards
from various nations and is
remembered for her work with
soldiers. She died on South Street,
Park Lane, London on August 13,
1910.
Sir James Young Simpson

Sir James Young

Simpson was born in
Bathgate, Linlithgowshire.
He went to Edinburgh
University at age sixteen.
Medically, he was interested
in pain relief. He was a
Christian and he supported
the anti-slavery movement.
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disease-modern-worries>.
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Galleries of Scotland Commons. Joseph Lister. 12 Dec. 2008. Flickr.
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<http://www.flickr.com/‌photos/‌nationalgalleries/‌3102028321/>.

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