Why was reform of public health considered necessary in Britain in the 19 century? What reforms took place and what part did Edwin Chadwick play in achieving them?

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Public Health in the 19th Century.

Why was reform of public health considered necessary in Britain in the 19 century? What reforms took place and what part did Edwin Chadwick play in achieving them?

A reform of Public health was extremely necessary, if not vital, due mainly to the fact that there were far too many people dying from lack of hygiene. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the living conditions of the working classes in Britain were utterly appalling.

The main problem was sewage. The disposal of sewage and other waste had always been a huge problem amongst the urban population. Though people living in rural areas tended to bury their rubbish or dump it in isolated spots, in urbanised society piles of decaying waste could be seen regularly in the streets and courtyards of the poorer areas, with their row-upon-row of back-to-back dwellings.

If not dumped in the streets, waste would be discarded into rivers or streams, from which, later, they would use the same water for drinking.

The water problem was another serious obstacle during the first half of the nineteenth century, when many families were forced to share contaminated wells. If not, there would commonly be one river for a whole town, from which would be collected as drinking or bathing water, but which also served as a deposit bank for waste and garbage. The cholera epidemic of 1831 had proved just how dangerous polluted water supplies could be. The urban society’s only bet for semi-clean water was to buy it from water sellers, who would collect it from upstream, where it would still be relatively clean, though many people could not afford such a luxury, and it was never sure how clean that water was either.

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Health standards were also lowered by the vast numbers of people living together. Since land owners wished to make as much money from as little land possible, they tried to create houses on small scraps of land, houses that took up as little room as possible. The most successful way of was to create back-to-back houses. And instead of building into width, they would build in height, creating basements, terraces and extra floors, to room more people. It was not unusual that there would be 3 families living in one house, a family on each floor, and since the ...

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