Health and Sanitation

Victorian Hospitals

Until the C19th century, serious illness amongst our ancestors was treated at home. The establishment of Victorian hospitals began as overcrowded workhouse infirmaries could no longer cope with the volume of patients in their care

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‘Lunatics’ and the Poor Law Act 1834

This entry is part 4 of 9 in the series Statutes of Law

Asylums had been operating in Britain for hundreds of years, the first recorded was the Bethlem Royal Hospital established in the C15th and were run  as private charitable institutions. The whole business was a haphazard affair until the Madhouse Act of 1774 which established licensing and yearly inspections of asylums. Still little provision was made…

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Health of the population 1904

In 1904, the Interdepartmental Committee on Physical Deterioration, wrote a report to look at the overall health of the UK population, particularly in respect of nutrition. The report was written following a document from the Director General of the Army Medical Services, in which he states his concern, that recruitment for troops for the Boer…

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