GCSE > History > AQA > GCSE History: Medicine and Health in Britain (1000-Present) Topic Summaries > Industrial medicine > Industrial public health
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Summary table
  • Social reformer Edwin Chadwick wrote a report on living conditions shocked Britain. Over 10,000 copies were handed to politicians, and 20,000 sold directly to the public. His report directly led to the Public Health Act 1848 and the government taking responsibility for people’s health (though the reforms Chadwick suggested weren’t made compulsory so changes were limited at first).
  • This would be followed by the Public Health Act 1875 following the Great Stink of excessive sewage in the Thames which required cities to provide clean water to its citizens and dispose of waste properly.
  • Soon, political parties realised that if they promised to improve conditions, they would get more votes from the working classes. This led to more public health reforms being introduced, and marked the end of the laissez-faire attitude towards public health.
  • The public health systems were tested by crises such as the Cattle Plague (1865–1967) – an outbreak of the rinderpest virus that killed over 10% of the cow population in Britain. It had an extremely high mortality rate of 90% and was highly contagious.

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