¬¬¬The sanitary era is one of the main movements responsible for a great part of the commitment towards public health (Hamilin & Sheard, 1998). Numerous problems existed prior to the implementation of public health measures, such as clean water, proper sewage and waste disposal, and proper animal carcass removal. It became clear to a few members of the public health community that changes needed to be made for the betterment of the lives of those living in the late 1800s. The changes made required time to implement and people who believed that many were suffering and dying from preventable diseases. Most of the sanitary era movement took place within England and the United States during the nineteenth century. Within the sanitary era, …show more content…
Ensuring a clean environment, one that is free of filth, would lower the number of deaths towards avoidable infectious diseases. The maintenance and assurance of a clean environment became more difficult as the city moved towards urbanization. As more people demanded more of the environment, pollution became more prominent. Public health problems emerged through the lack of sanitation, and influx of filth from the increased population. As mentioned previously, one of the main public health concerns focused on a population of individuals that lacked access to clean water. One of the main assessments on sanitary conditions outside of the United States took place in the nineteenth century, when the discovery of how diseases spread was beginning to come into the light. In England, cholera outbreaks led to the deaths of thousands of people, with the cause of the disease a mystery. As a result, John Snow, another individual practiced public health, and who believed in the contagionist theory, began to observe cholera, particularly its pathology, and believed cholera entered into the body through the consumption of water (Snow, 2002). Snow then observed were those who had died of cholera had obtained their drinking water, and found the source of the cholera contamination to be from a
The English, specifically the colonists, drank water of which was contaminated with bacteria such as Escherichia coli and high levels of saline and ended up causing diseases that
A reviewer in the London Medical Gazette suggested that Snow find people living side by side with lifestyles similar in all aspects except of their water source. He made this suggestion because this would ensure that the neighbors breathe the same air and resemble each other more in variables other than the water source. This would guarantee that the water is the source, and not other factors that is causing the cholera.
John Snow’s findings in place, the Great Stink was the last factor that finally motivated the government to deal with their contaminated drinking water. Years later, another outbreak erupted. Farr, Radcliffe, and Whitehead referred to the now deceased physician’s theory of cholera. Farr was convinced that cholera originated in contaminated water, and he found out that the drainage system in the devastated part of the city was not in use yet. The outbreak of cholera on Broad Street and the iconic map thereafter helped to improve sanitation; the reputation of this famous, clean water, and the isolated cases that specifically fetched water from this pump, were a few factors that aided Snow in his conclusion that cholera came from the Broad Street well. Dr. Snow provided the theory, and Whitehead backed it with evidence. When the scientific mainstream came to accept the cholera theory of water, hygiene was significantly bettered in cities. Sanitary water supplies and waste-removal systems became the central infrastructure project of every industrialized city on the planet. These sewer lines and freshwater pipes made the modern city safe for new inventions and developments.
In the summer of 1854, London was coming out as one of the most modern cities in the world. With nearly 2.4 million people living in the area at the time, the city’s infrastructure itself was having a hard time providing for the basic needs of its residents. The biggest problem existing within the city at that time was its waste removal system, or for better terms, its lack of one. Human waste was piling up everywhere, from people houses to the rivers and drinking water. This situation was the perfect breeding conditions for a number of diseases, and towards the end of that summer, one of the most deadly of them all took over. It took the work of both a physician and a local minister in order to discover the mysterious cause of the
During the 1800’s the way people lived was not quite how we live today. Although some may argue that the way they lived back then was so much easier it actually caused a lot of humans to perish. Not only did they die from diseases, but also because there was a lack of sanitization. “Industrial growth brought with it a host of environmental pollution problems”, (Document 3). Imagine living in an environment with trash and waste just being dumped into the streets, compared
Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as the country grew and trade flourished, periodic epidemics struck regions of the nation as population density increased. Outbreaks of influenza, cholera took over the nation, and in the south, one of the most prevalent was yellow fever. Due to these diseases, a lot of public health policies were either created or changed to better suit the new issues arising. In this essay, I will argue that the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1878 brought upon many changes in the health realm in terms of public sanitation. In order to prove the epidemic s place in the history of health policies, I will be discussing the creation of the new sewer system, waste disposal techniques, and other projects created.
In American industrial cities, late 1800s, Poor neighborhood were not the best place to live. With poor living conditions, poor sanitation and crowded housing, many epidemics of infectious disease spread into the poor population and touched even the wealthy class. Cities such as New York were crowded and workers were living in tenements, which were often cramped, poorly lit and poorly aerated. Moreover, these tenements lacked of adequate plumbing, therefore waste was flooding in the public streets. Streets was crowded of waste and garbage. Population was poorly nourished and has a poor life hygiene like water pollution and poisoned food and milk. Accordingly, infectious disease was the common death reason. Big cities had known outbreaks of
It is hard to imagine in the twenty first century the level of filth that was experienced in the 1830’s on a daily basis. Sanitation, public health and sewer systems were problems that gripped the nation throughout the ninetieth century (1830-1860s), encouraging popular debate and proposal of changes. The growth of population and increase in the industry
Air pollution such as black smoke caused health issues such as respiratory disease. Extreme example of air pollution like Pittsburgh had “people’s hands and faces were constantly grimy, clean collars quickly acquired a thin layer of soot”. Besides black smoke, animal waste was another essential result for air pollution. According to statistics, “the 15,000 horses in Rochester, New York, left enough waste in a year to cover an acre of land with a layer of 175 feet high”. These horrify numbers happened due to the blindly industrialization during the Gilded Age, and people allowed all of those waste and destruction to develop for their own benefits. Household sewage and industrial pollutants polluted the water people used for showering and drinking. While we were destroying the environment, the nature was taking its greatest revenge to all human
Public health may have remained a pool of disease was it not for the reforms made in the middle ages Though the town authorities tried their best, London was probably the most unsanitary town in England. Slowly, however, rules were made and enforced. In 1301 four women butchers were fined for throwing the blood and guts of slaughtered animals into the street. By 1370, 12 teams of 'muck' collectors combed the streets for animal and human excrement - money could be made out of it by selling it to local farmers (which helped further spread the various diseases…)
On the other end of the society scale, the working poor were working and living in unbearable conditions. There were no irrigation systems, running water or any way of preserving hygiene in the homes or the factories. The working poor lived in slums and tenements which were breeding grounds for diseases. In the book, “The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844” by Friedrich Engels, he states, “...at the end of the covered passage, a privy without a door, so dirty that the inhabitants can pass into and out of the court only by passing through foul pools of stagnant urine and excrement.” (page 78)1. This gives us a peek into the horrible unsanitary conditions that the working class were forced to endure while the business owners were living in beautiful mansions and summer houses.
Another thing that was happening in the 1830s was the religious and cultural practices and the forbidden conducts; during this period it was notable that people were quarantine for epidemics, sexual prohibitions to minimize illness spread and dietary restrictions to minimize nutrition illnesses. The hygiene movement (1840 – 1870) brought, the sanitary conditions as the foundation for improvement. The contagion control (1880 – 1940) in which immunology and outbreak investigations began. Between the 1950s and mid-1980s, the
Between the 1830’s to 1860’s, cholera spread into the United States from India by trade routes. Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by drinking or eating material that is infected with Vibrio cholerae. Cholera causes watery diarrhoea, but can show days later or never show
The answer lies in the climate fostered in Victorian England. It was one of unparalleled progress due to exploding industrialization of cities with modern factories, production processes, and advanced engineering. This exciting era also brought momentous discoveries in Geology, Astronomy, and the sciences. Discoveries like electricity and vaccines made a huge difference in the citizen’s quality of life. However, even though there was much advancement, the unsafe sanitation
In the early 19th Century the vast majority of housing for the working class was in a terrible condition, which were mainly due to overcrowding, poor ventilation and unsanitary environments. These issues lead to outbreaks of cholera on a number of occasions between the years 1813 and 1865. The Public Health Act was introduced in 1848, which required all local authorities to provide towns with hygienic sewage disposal and clean water supplies. Due to the presence of disease in slums, the Sanitary Reform Act was introduced in 1866. The act gave local authorities powers to inspect the cleanliness of homes in their district. (Naidoo and Wills, 2009). As stated by Berridge, Martin and Mold (2011), the Sanitary Reform Act aimed to address the problems with sewage, household waste and contaminated