History of Medicine
19th  Century
The first public health act was in 1848 which was largely a result of Edwin Chadwick's work on health. He was born in the year 1800, and in the year of 1832, he accepted the role of Assistant Commissioner on the Poor Law commission. This is what started his work.

Later in the same year, Chadwick was appointed a Chief Commissioner because he wanted to collect facts about the existing system of Poor Law management.
Chadwick improved methods at first met with opposition from his special colleagues and it therefore meant that ideas were carried out.



The Poor Law Act 1834
The poor law act was setup by a man called Earl Gray who was the prime minister in 1833. This law was produced because he wanted to examine the working of the poor law system in Britain.
Before, the poor law act was commissioned; the prime minister had to make a report that backed up the theory of the poor law system in Britain. As a result, the poor law amendment act was passed. The poor law act confirmed that:
  • No well fitted person was to receive any kind of money or other help from the poor law authorities except in a workhouse.
  • The conditions that where in the workhouses were to be made very harsh to discourage people from wanting to receive help.
  • Workhouses were to be built in every community or, if communities were too small, then they had to be built in unions of parishes.
  • Ratepayers in each township or unions in Britain had to elect as board of guardians to supervise the workhouse, to collect the poor rate and send reports to the central poor law commission.
  • The three man central poor law commission would be appointed by the government and would be responsible for supervising the amendment act throughout the century.



The First Public Health Act 1848

This act was largely the result of Chadwick's work and the pressure applied by the health of town's association. It allowed smaller towns to implement changes to sanitation but was limited in its overall scope. The first public act included:
  • Medical officer in each town.
  • Water pumps
  • Rubbish Collections.
  • The first public health act wasn't compulsory for all towns so it didn't go down well.
About John Snow and anaesthetics
John Snow is a 19th century British physicist. He is considered to be one of the founders of epidemiology (the science of medical science which deals with the transmission and control of diseases. Which is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations.). He is the one who identified the source of the cholera outbreak in 1854. At the time, it was assumed that cholera was airborne. However, Snow did not accept this 'miasma' (bad air) theory, arguing that in fact entered the body through the mouth.

In August 1854, Soho experienced a cholera outbreak, so he plotted the places where people lived who got cholera. He noticed that people who lived certain a specific water pump had the cholera. So he identified a water pump in Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) as the source of the disease.

Once he had the handle of the pump removed, the cases of cholera started to decrease dramatically. However, his germ theory was not widely accepted until the 1860s. He also is famous for his work in anaesthetics. He made drugs safer and more effective by testing ether and chloroform which are both anaesthetics which we still use today in small doses on animals and humans. This suggests that in the olden days before him, people just tested drugs on sick people who were to be operated on.
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