SOCIAL CONDITIONS

SOCIAL CONDITIONS INTRODUCTION

During the middle of the Victorian age rural people lived longer than those living in the city, the rich lived longer than the poor and men lived longer than women. Women died younger not only due to childbirth but because they did not eat enough food. The best food tended to be given to the men and boys in a family. Women who were primarily responsible for nursing the sick and this of course often led to their own sickness.

In the lower classes, both men and women were debilitated by the age of forty. Long hours and poor nutrition all contributed to a short life expectancy. The life span slowly increased within the Victorian age as treatment became more advanced, surgery more effective and knowledge more extensive.

Medical Practice in the early 1800s seems basic to us today but the 17th century had seen important breakthroughs in medicine and these would be built on during the 1800s.

In the industrial towns, a number of factors were identified by the medical profession and health reform pioneers as contributing to the low standard of public health. These included overcrowding and poor ventilation in badly maintained tenements. Poor nutrition and sanitation combined to contribute to contagious diseases such as smallpox that were virtually endemic. Cholera, TB, Scarlet Fever and Typhoid were also commonplace.

The Public Health Act of 1848 set up local health boards, investigated sanitary conditions nationwide and established a General Board of Health. Another major breakthrough came with the cholera epidemic of 1854 when John Snow discovered the link between dirty water and cholera.

Public funds began to be diverted into the investigation of communicable diseases including diphtheria, typhoid and small pox. Health legislation was implemented and in 1875 a Public Health Act encompassed housing, sewage and drainage, water supply and contagious diseases and provided Britain ultimately with the most comprehensive public health system in the world.