People's Health

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

God’s World

• Everyone believed in God

 

• Showed himself as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

God’s Church

• Doing good deeds would clear them to enter Heaven

 

• Gave money to sick and needy

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Key factors affecting health

Lack of technology

 

• Couldn’t see where diseases came from

 

Influence of Old times

 

• Four humours

Growth of wool trade

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Countryside Living Conditions

• Importance of harvest

 

• Dangerous bread

  • Fungus on rye caused ergotism

 

• Small beer

  • Many drank water though

   

  • Streams were polluted by fulling

 

• Lived in large houses with timber frames

  • Smokes and straw everywhere

 

• Waste was collected from cesspits for fertilisers

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Towns

• Food was carried in same carts used to collect waste

 

• Roads were easily turned muddy

  • Drains broken by carts and animals

 

• Markets were centre of life

  • Centre of towns had a conduit

  • Directed away by lead pipes

  • Started by Churches

• Very few had pipes in houses

 

• Vendors sold old and rancid pies

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Attempts to fix health in cities

• Mayor of London in 1423 left money for latrines

 

• 1293 rakers were employed in London

 

• By 1500, most other towns had too

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Butchers and Waste

• Butchers caused a mess

  • Were ordered to cut in the outskirts and dispose of rubbish

   

  • Tanners, brewers, dyers and masons had to do the same

 

 

• Waste

  • Most people shared latrines

   

  • Would get fined if they did not remove waste within 3 days

   

  • Gong fermers removed waste from cess pits and latrines

   

  • Often dumped them in streams or sold to farmers

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Black Death Arrival, Types and Causes

 

Arrival

 

• Came in 1348 at Melcombe

 

Types

 

• Bubonic

  • From flea bite

   

  • Causes buboes and blisters

 

• Septicaemic

  • When enters blood stream

   

  • Bleeds randomly

   

  • Extremities rot away

 

• Pneumonic

  • Breathing in the plague

   

  • Coughs up blood

 

Cause

 

• God's punishment

 

• Miasma

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Attempts to Cure Black Death

• Flagellants

 

• Confessing sins

 

• Large processions

 

• Avoid baths

 

• Wear rosemary

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Impact of Black Death

• Killed 2/3 of population

 

• Influences people to clean their streets

 

• Continued to occur after

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Monasteries Health

• Were very clean

 

• Places of worship and so sacred

  • Pure water needed

 

• Places of healing

 

• Changed after 1500

  • Less people paid to the church

   

  • Got God's blessing by helping the towns instead

   

  • Reformation

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Changes to Towns to Fix Health

• Bristol moved dungheaps, lepers and prostitutes to the outskirts

 

• Norwich named and blamed people who polluted

Medieval (1250 - 1500)

Fixing Health in London

• Extension of pipes and public latrines built by Mayor of London, John Wells (1430s)

 

• Fines were put in place for those who disposed of meat in other places than the newly made jetty (1393)

 

• Underground passageway built to move waste from where animals were slaughtered to the river (1488)

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Overview of England: Farming, Wool, Coal, Trade

Farming:

 

• Main source of food and income

 

• Still done by hand (ex. 1700s)

 

 

Wool

 

• Still main industry

 

• Pre-industrial revolution

 

 

Coal

 

• Steam engines were used

 

• Used widely and caused air pollution

 

 

Trade

 

• Trade increased with colonies

 

• Spices, dyes and silk

 

• Trading ports doubled in size

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Overview of England: Towns, Monasteries, Alehouses, Inventions

Growing towns

 

 

End of monasteries

 

 

New discoveries

 

• Beginning of inventions such as microscope

 

• Still no understanding of plague

 

 

Prints

 

• Wide spread printing press

 

• Same ideas carried with it

 

 

Alehouses

 

• Mother Louse - alehouse keeper

 

• Many people drank

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Food

• Rich indulged in delicacies such as fruit

 

• Merchants brought food from abroad with them

 

• Poor people barely had enough money to buy food

 

• Ate pottage and famines were common

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Urban Environment

• Animals roamed the streets freely (dogs and cats)

 

• Streets were crammed and crowded

  • Couldn't see the floor

   

  • Often not paved

 

• Homes were heated with coal so smoky

 

• Houses were built with stone or brick

 

• Overcrowded and had overhanging jetties

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Water

• Poor people could not shower regularly

  • Only access to water was if near pond or river

   

  • Only rich could afford soap for skin

   

  • Water may be dirty

 

• Instead dry washed

 

• Water to houses

  • Pay for it to be piped

   

  • Collecting water from conduit

   

  • Buying water from water seller

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Waste

• Got collected by rakers

 

• If not, dump out by dunghills

 

• First WC made by Elizabeth I's godson

 

• Most used a privy that was over a cess pit

  • Would have to be emptied by scavengers once a year

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Diseases

 

• Typhus, dysentery, syphilis

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Reasons for fear of plague (4)

Frequency

 

• At least 8 major outbreaks between 1500 - 1670

 

• One every 20 years

 

• Constant fear that it would reappear

 

Symptoms

 

• Symptoms were horrific

  • Swelling on the lymph nodes

   

  • Pus on buboes

   

  • Delirium occurs after kidney and heart fail

 

• Only 1 in 5 survived

 

Impact

 

• Could wipe out 10% of a population

 

• Worst case scenario 30%

 

Understanding

 

• Tried to understand what caused it

 

• No understanding of the role of rats and fleas

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

National Responses

1518 isolation proclamation by Henry VIII

 

• Straw had to be on window of infected house

 

• Left with a stick

 

Elizabeth's Plague Orders

 

• Watchmen: enforce quarantines

 

• Searchers: report on how infection spread by inspecting bodies

 

• Streets should be thoroughly cleaned

 

• Later: harsh punishment for those who left houses

 

• If infected you'd be hanged, if in quarantine you'd be whipped

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Local Responses to Plague

• Towns built pesthouses

 

• Cambridge

  • Only allowed strangers in with certificate of health

   

  • Worked as first infection was in 1665

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

People’s Reactions to Plague

• Turning to God

  • Did not use flaggellance

  • Prayed and fasted instead

 

• Rich people ran away

 

• Doctors wore protective equipment (beaks with herbs)

 

• Avoiding the sick

 

• Stronger sense of community

  • Orphans were taken in

  • Dignified funerals

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Local Government Health Improvements: York

• Fines were put in place to tackled

 

• York

  • Fined for throwing out urine in the street

   

  • All homeowners had to clean street outside property 2x a week

   

  • Pigs were kept in sties

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Local Government Health Improvements: London

• Streets were paved with stone

 

• Most towns had well-lit streets

 

• Several water companies in London piped water into the homes of those who could afford subscriptions

 

• Squares of large terraced houses (better and cleaner housing)

 

• Poor neighbourhoods still had unlit streets

 

• Waste was still a big issue and had not changed since 1600s

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Gin Craze: General

• Big problem in 1600s England

 

• Came from Holland

 

• Most poor people drank

 

• Had a lot of damage on peoples' lives

• Cheapest alcohol after imports banned

Early Modern (1500 - 1750)

Gin Craze Legislation

• 1729 Gin Act - Distillers had to pay 5 shillings for each gallon of gin produced + £20 annual license

 

• 1736 Gin Act - Licenses went up to £50 and 20 shillings per gallon

 

• 1743 Gin Act - Restricted the sale of gin to alehouses

 

• 1751 Gin Act - Anyone who sold gin illegally was imprisoned (1st offense), whipped (2nd) and transported (3rd)

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Overview: Food Supply, Industrialisation, Work, British Empire

Food supply

 

• Population rapidly increased by 16 million in 50 years

 

• Wages were still very poor despite technological advances causing hunger

 

 

Industrialisation

 

• Factories used steam engines

 

• Released a lot of smoke and pollution

 

 

Working Conditions

 

• Long hours and poor wages

 

• Accidents were common and noise was deafening

 

British Empire

 

• Ruled 1/5th of land

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Overview: Urbanisation, Beliefs, Discoveries, Literacy and Classism

Urbanisation

 

• Overcrowding in many cities and network of railways connected all

 

 

Changing Beliefs

 

• Theory of evolution

 

• Less dependence on God

 

 

Discoveries

 

• Germs and source of disease could finally be identified

 

 

Growing Literacy

 

• Schooling was provided by churches, charities and government

 

 

Class Divisions and Democracy

 

• Laws were often passed in favour of poorer people

 

• Slumdogs vs millionaires

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Living Conditions: Housing and Food

Housing

 

• Back to back housing which had poor ventilation

 

• People living in cellars and lodging houses

 

 

Food

 

• Farming less available

 

• Poor wage quality and quantity food was hard to get

 

• Food often adulted

 

• Butter had copper in it

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Living Conditions: Water and Waste

Water

 

• No water was pumped to houses

 

• Shared water pumps that were on 2 - 3 days a week

 

• Sometimes from ponds and rainwater that was not cleaned

 

 

Waste

 

• New housing did not have sewage system

 

• Cesspits from midden privies

 

• Soil men were paid by landlords occasionally

 

• Waste was recycled into water that was repumped into houses

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Cholera in Leeds

 

Cholera in Leeds

 

• Started in India and arrived in Leeds

 

• Killed in 1 - 2 days

 

• Caused blue skin and stomach cramps

 

• Spread very easily

 

• 1 privy between 340 people

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Cholera: Baker

• Discovered the relationship between disease and living conditions

 

• Thought it was miasma

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Responses to Cholera (7 things)

• Quarantine people in cholera hospital

  • Resulted in cholera riots

 

• Not allowed to drink alcohol

• Quarantining

 

• Central board of Health

 

• Reliance on God

 

• Local board of Health

  • Inspectors employed like 1600s searchers

 

• Removing bad smells

  • Burning barrels of tar

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Edwin Chadwick

• Wrote 'Sanitary Report'

  • Shone a light living conditions for the poor

 

• Wrote solutions to health issues such as water supplies and sewers

 

• Led to the Public Health Act 1848

  • First law to tackle health issues

   

  • Was permissive not compulsory

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

John Snow and Discovery of Cholera Germ

• John Snow

  • Linked that Cholera came from water in Broad Street

   

  • 1854

   

• Discovery of cholera germ

  • Pacini found the pathogen that caused it

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Great Stink and Pasteur

Great Stink

 

• Led to Bazalgette building 1300 miles of sewers which allowed dirty water to be taken away

• Completed in 1875

Pasteur

 

• Germ theory

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Public Health Act

• 1875

• Forced councils to clean up towns

 

• Much stronger than 1848 one

Industrial Britain (1750 - 1900)

Civil Pride: Woman’s Co-operative Guild

• Change from Laissez-Faire attitude

 

• Fought for better women based health matters

 

• Maternity car and free school meals

Industrial Revolution (1750 - 1900)

Civil Pride: Housing and Water

• Improved greatly

• By 1900 nearly every household had running water

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Overview: Government

1900:

 

• Welfare state formed

 

• Liberal Reforms

  • Free school meals

2000:

• Labour governments increased public spending

 

• NHS created in 1948 after Labour gov voted in

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Overview: Science and Technology

1900:

• Advances in communication

2000:

• Antibiotics and cars spread widely

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Overview: Beliefs and Values

1900:

• Many religious doubts

 

• WW1 furthered this

2000:

• Even less religion

 

• Most people believed in science instead

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Overview: Work and Wealth

1900:

• Men did most of work

 

• Done by hand

 

• Trade unions

2000:

• Very large middle class

 

• Technology does most of manual labour

 

• More people do "service industries"

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Overview: People and Population

1900:

• Farming was still important

 

• Most people lived in cities

2000s

• Doubled in 100 years

 

• Extra demands on Welfare State

 

• More divorces

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Overview: Leisure and lifestyle

1900:

• 54 hours of work per week

 

• Lots of exercise and sat and sun free

2000:

• 39 hours a week

 

• TV and vacations abroad

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Housing: Parliament Housing Act 1919

• Used taxpayers money to fund each local authorities building

 

• Set standards for space and water etc.

• Council houses were called "homes fit for heroes"

• Council estates such as Becontree set up and supervised

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Housing: Housing Act in 1930 and Margaret Thatcher

• Cleared out the slums and set up new council houses

 

• After WW2 high-rise houses built

• MT: Allowed tenants to buy council houses

 

• MT: Meant rise in rent from landlords

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Food: Chain Brands

• Government cracked down on adulteration

 

• Chain brands became popular such as Sainsbury's and Lipton's

 

• 1914, 60% income on food

 

• 1937, 37% income on food

 

• Convenience cooking

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Food: Rationing

Ended in 1954

Less sweet things and crackdown on food

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Food: Fears of food

• BSE in cows

 

• Found out to spread to humans so less people bought beef

 

• Antibiotics in animals that we eat

  • Spread antibiotic resistance

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Air: Coal and Smog

• Coal was heavily consumed

  • Polluted the air, but was seen as a sign of booming economy

 

• Smog 1952

  • London smog killed 12,000 Londoners

   

  • Clean Air Act 1956

   

  • Created smokeless zones that grew

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Air: Cars

• Increased by a quarter and released fumes

 

• Diesel was promoted

  • Contains carcinogens

• Promoted inactivity

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Inactivity

• Exercise levels dropped and transport depended upon vehicles

  • High consumption

 

• New technologies

  • Less high-intensity labour

 

• 44% of men obese and 33% of women obese

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Spanish Flu: Impacts

• Killed 33 million more than WWI

 

• Killed more in one year than Black Death in 3 years

 

• Influenced more people into wearing masks

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Spanish Flu: Cause

• Carried from labourers in China to join labour camps

 

• Spread in trenches

 

• Poor conditions and close contact

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Spanish Flu: Symptoms

• Common cold then pneumonia

 

• Could kill within hours

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Spanish Flu: Responses

• Dr Niven

• Helped marginalise the impact of the Flu

 

• Referred to records of earlier severe flu outbreaks

 

• Published detailed advice in newspapers

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

AIDS: Impact

• More acceptance overall surrounding AIDS

 

• Involved in TV programmes with Eastenders characters

 

• 25,000 in 1995 had HIV

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

AIDS: Cause

• Spread via sharing of bodily fluids

 

• Caused by HIV

 

• Often from gay sex

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

AIDS: Symptoms

Pneumonia, weight-loss

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

AIDS: Response

• Large stigma surrounding gay men ("Gay Plague")

  • Many preached gay men to stop having sex

 

• Many did not know how it spread so many overreacted

  • Stopped mouth to mouth in Fire Service

 

• Government response

  • Screening of blood for transfusions

   

  • Princess Diana handshake

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

AIDS: Issues

People too dependent on anti-retroviral drugs

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Liberal Reforms: Laws

• 1911 National insurance scheme for unemployed and sick workers

 

• 1902 training of midwives

 

• 1906 free school meals

 

• Creation of a welfare state

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Labour Government: NHS

• Founded in 1948

 

• Used taxpayers money to treat others for free

 

• Was called "National Sickness Service"

  • Was more about treating than preventing

Modern (c. 1900 - 2000)

Smoking: Lack of response

• Smoking was part of everyday life

 

• 1880s machines built to dispense them

• Suspected caused cancer

 

• Was difficult to prevent due to fears of being a "Nanny State"

 

• Fears of ban impacting economy

 

• Need income from taxes on cigarettes

Modern (c.1900 - 2000)

Smoking: Government response

• 1964 cigarette adverts banned on TV

 

• 2016 all packaging to be blank and with no colour