Living Conditions Disease/Epidemics Government/Local ......Write a clear and organised summary which...

Living Conditions Disease/Epidemics Government/Local improvements

People’s Health Topic One: Medieval Britain, 1250-1500

Bristol: Dungheaps, lepers and prostitutes (believed to cause miasma) were moved outside the town

Winchester: butchers guild appointed 2 people to check the quality of meat before it was sold. Fines given if the quality slipped.

York: King Edward I ordered the authorities to clear the filth from the streets.

Guild members also made a great effort to keep London clean: ➢ Gongfermors were paid professional street cleaners.➢ Juries tried butchers and fishmongers who sold putrid food

and they were fined.➢ Rich citizens left money in their wills for piped water and

more latrines.➢ A warden checked that the streets were clean.

Black Death arrived in 1348. Horrific symptoms were caused by the three forms – pneumonic, bubonic and septicemic. People tried blood letting, live toads and chickens over buboes. People confessed their sins to God, flagellants punished themselves. People blamed the planets, God, Jews and Miasma. Many carried posies of flowers.

Countryside

Towns

Food: Peasants lived off the land. A good harvest improved health but often a poor harvest led to famine. 10% of the population died in the Great Famine of 1315-16. Diet: Pottage (peas, beans, onions)

Clean water: Villages were near a streamand a spring fed at least one well. Water wheels used to ground

grain. Nets used to catch fish – good source of vitamins.

Housing: Some peasants had a simple hut made with mud. Others lived in large houses with timber frames. Fire in the centre for cooking, warmth and smoking meat.

Clean water: Townspeople didn’t use streams for their water and only a few people had wells - there was usually a conduit, or fountain, in the market square, and people got their water from that, either directly or by buying it from water carriers.

Housing: Rich merchants had houses that jutted out on the second floor. In the centre of town, houses were tightly packed. Thatched roofs full of mice and rats. Towns were very smelly, people grew flowers to purify the air. At the edge of the town Many had gardens, grew veg and had chickens and pigs.

Waste: butchery made an awful mess. Tanners used acids to make leather, and that all had to go somewhere. Also, beer brewers had leftover barley husks and washerwomen created huge amounts of dirty water.

Living Conditions

1. Why were good harvests so important to the health of medieval

people?

2. Describe the different types of housing available to medieval people.

3. How were conditions in a Medieval town and village similar and

different?

Disease/Epidemics

1. What did medieval people think were the main causes of the Black

Death?

2. How did medieval people try to prevent the Black Death?

3. What was a flagellant?

4. Name one way in which medieval people tried to treat someone who

was suffering from Black Death?

Government/Local improvements

1. How did the Church help to improve medicine during the Middle

Ages?

2. Why did monasteries need clean water?

3. What was a gongfermor?

4. Give two examples of improvements to public health in towns.

5. What limited improvement to public health in the Middle Ages?

BUG and bullet point an answer to the question:

❑ Write a clear and organised summary which analyses living conditions

in the Middle Ages. [9]

❑ Write a clear and organised summary that analyses the responses to

the Black Death. Support your summary with examples. [9]

❑ Write a clear and organised summary that analyses the strategies used

by towns to improve public health in the medieval period. Support your

summary with examples. [9]

❑ Why was public health in medieval monasteries so good? Explain your

answer. [10]

Answer these questions using the knowledge organiser. Use these to test yourself/get someone to quiz you.


People’s Health Topic Two: Early Modern Britain, 1500-1750

People’s Reactions to the PlagueThree religious responses that were the same as in the medieval period:➢ Church attendance went up, as it did in

medieval times. ➢ People still thought plague was caused by

God’s anger. ➢ People still did good deeds. Prayer and fasting

Other actions:1. Running away – easier for the wealthy who

had country houses2. Seeking a cure from Physicians and

apothecaries were sought for treatment3. Doctors wore heavy cloaks and hoods and

leather beaks with herbs4. Avoiding the sick5. Sticking together – few people abandoned

their families.

Local authorities made major improvements:➢ Paved streets with footpaths for pedestrians ➢ Oil burning street lamps➢ In York: people were fined for leaving human waste in

the street However still no link between dirt and disease yet – sewers were not built for another 100 years.

Gin Craze: Between 1720 and 1751, this was a serious issue.

Gin was imported from Holland and became incredibly cheap –gin sellers advertised that you could get ‘Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence’. So it became really popular with the poor. People got addicted to it, crime went up, families were ruined… people drank themselves to death. So the big change was in how the government reacted.

It was such a big social problem that Parliament got involved. All through the eighteenth century, they passed laws to try to control it. They tried licensing, they tried taxation and ended up transporting people to Australia who repeatedly sold gin without a licence. This was enforced by the 1751 Gin Act. It was really the first time the national government had taken on a public health issue with any success.

Food: The rich ate relatively few vegetables, and some people thought fruit was bad for you because it made you fart. Poorer people might have meat or fish

as an occasional treat, but they relied on bread and vegetables, mainly in the form of pottage. Their bread was usually made from rye, whereas the rich could afford wheat bread. They might eat some fruit, and their main sweetener was honey.

Housing: A lot of houses were still poor quality, even newer ones built of brick or stone. Houses continued to be poorly constructed in the early modern period. They were often draughty and damp. No wonder many people suffered from respiratory diseases.

Water: Rich people had water piped to their homes but most people in towns got water from a conduit or bought it from water sellers. In the countryside, they might have wells, or get water from springs or streams. In any case, the water back then must have tasted terrible and would have been unsafe to drink. No wonder people preferred to drink beer.

Although, the first flushing toilet was invented in 1596, it was not until the 18th century when a few wealthier people began to have them fitted. The problem of how to deal with human waste got worse as the towns got bigger and made towns unpleasant as well as unhealthy places to live.

Living Conditions

1. What were the main differences between the diets of the rich and

poor during this period?

2. Which living condition caused respiratory (breathing) diseases in this

period?

3. When was the flushing toilet invented?

Disease/Epidemics

1. What did people think caused the Great Plague in 1665?

2. How did people try to prevent the Great Plague in 1665?

3. Which Tudor queen published the Plague Orders in 1578?

4. Name one of the Plague Orders? These were new ideas compared to

the Black Death in medieval times.

5. How were ideas similar at the time of the Great Plague compared to

the Black Death in 1348?


1. What was the gin craze?

2. How did the government attempt to tackle the gin craze?

3. What was the 1751 Gin Act?

4. Name one way local Alderman made improvements to local towns.


❑ Why did the ‘gin craze’ cause so many problems for the government?

Support your answer with examples. [10]

❑ Why did the living conditions of early modern people cause health

problems? Support your answer with examples. [10]

❑ By 1750 public health had significantly improved from 1500. How far do

you agree with this statement? Give reasons for your answer. [18]

❑ How far do you agree that living conditions were better in the Early

Modern period than in the Middle Ages? Give reasons for your answer.

[18]



Housing: Lodging houses were often large, old houses divided up into smaller rooms. People were often packed into small rooms, sometimes sleeping on the floor or sharing a bed. Typhus (passed on by body lice) was common. Most people lived in ‘back to back houses’ which were built in large numbers during the period.

People’s Health Topic Three: Industrial Britain, 1750-1900

1858 – ‘ The Great Stink’ smell of sewage reached the House of Commons due to the hot weather. MPs decided to give Joseph Bazalgette the go ahead to build 1300 miles of sewers in 1865. Sewage was held in reservoirs downstream from central London and released into the river to coincide with the outward tide.

1861: Pasteur’s germ theory. He found the link betweengerms and disease.

As towns and cities became wealthier, mayors and corporations began to spend lots of money on improvements to show how powerful and prosperous they were. They built lots of grand public buildings, like town halls and libraries, but they also paid for improvements to living conditions.

The main improvement to public health was that by 1900, water schemes across Britain meant that nearly everyone had a constant supply of clean drinking water piped to their house.

1875 Public Health Act:Councils forced to clean up and take responsibility for sewers, rubbish collection and public toilets. All new houses had piped water.

How did local authorities improve living conditions?Manchester, for example, spent eight years damming Lake Thirlmere in the Lake District and building a 96 mile aqueduct to bring the water to Manchester. Three thousand men worked on that project in 1894.

1854 -John Snow found the link to Cholera being a water borne disease – map of broad street found the pump was infected.

Some local authorities imposed a quarantine. They posted constables on the outskirts of the town to turn away poor people trying to enter. Many towns set up a cholera hospital where victims could be isolated. Across Britain, the 1832 cholera epidemic killed around 32,000 people, and the crisis deepened during the 1830s and 1840s.

In 1831, a new disease appeared: cholera. It spread quickly over much of the country. It killed very quickly, often within a day or two with severe diarrhoea and vomiting. The disease was spread by faecal contamination in water supplies, so it spread most quickly in poor areas, where sanitation was worst. Most people still believed in the miasma theory which said that the disease was spread by poisoned air.

Edwin Chadwick: led a major investigation into the people’s health in 1842. He was convinced that ill health was caused by filthy living conditions. As a result the 1848 Public Health Act was introduced but these were not compulsory. Towns could set up the General Board of Health and have local Boards of Health set up if they wanted.

Food was often adulterated to pad it out or make it look more appealing. Butchers sold meat form diseased animals; cows milk was mixed with water and chalk; copper was added to butter to improve the colour – many people suffered from diarrhoea and food poisoning.

Water: in poor parts of the town people shared a water pump. Water companies pumped water from polluted rivers. Typhoid killed many. No one knew that germs in dirty water caused disease

Waste: Sometimes several families shared a single privy, and human waste overflowed in the streets. Infant mortality was very high. In Manchester, fewer than half of the children born in 1842 lived until the age of five. Upper class people started to use water closets (flushing in toilets). Many of these were connected to sewers by 1880 but emptied into rivers where water companies got their water.

Food: It was impossible for industrial workers to grow vegetables or raise animals, so they were dependent on shops and street sellers. Many families were too poor to afford enough food, and lived on bread, butter and potatoes.

Living Conditions

1. What were lodging houses?

2. How was typhus spread?

3. What was the adulteration of food?

4. Where did water companies pump water from?

Disease/Epidemics

1. What did people think caused Cholera?

2. How did local authorities try to prevent Cholera?

3. What discovery did Dr John Snow make in 1854, and how?

4. How many people died during the 1832 cholera outbreak?


1. What contribution did Louis Pasteur make to medicine in the

nineteenth century?

2. What role did Edwin Chadwick play in the 1848 Public Health Act?

3. What were the details of the 1875 Public Health Act?

4. How was the 1875 Public Health Act different to the Act of 1848?

5. What contribution did Joseph Bazalgette make to Public Health?

6. How did local authorities improve living conditions?


❑ Write a clear and organised summary which analyses living conditions

in early Industrial Britain. (9)

❑ Why were attempts to deal with cholera epidemics in the 1830s

ineffective? (10)

❑ How far do you agree that the authorities in Industrial Britain made

greater attempts to improve public health than the authorities in the

Middle Ages? Give reasons for your answer. [18]

❑ ‘The health of people in Industrial Britain had not changed since the

Early Modern Period’ How far do you agree? (18)



People’s Health Topic four: Modern Britain, 1900 -

In the 1920’s, labour saving devices such as hoovers and washing machines were introduced. This led to people becoming consumers. The levels of exercise dropped.

Convenience foods made in factories proved to be cheaper alternatives for many working families to buy and consume after World War Two. These tended to have far less nutritional value and instead had preservatives added.

The new health organisations tried to manage the spread of the flu. Dr James Niven, the Medical Officer in Manchester, worked tirelessly to protect people from the flu epidemic.

The NHS was probably the biggest change in thewhole period. Some people couldn’t afford to paydoctors when they were ill. So the new Labour government set up a

National Health Service, paid for through taxation, to provide care from hospitals, family doctors and dentists, free of charge.

In 1952, there was an awful smog in London. It lasted over a week and it killed about 12,000 people. It pushed government to do something and so in 1956, Parliament passed the Clean Air Act

At first, the media reaction to AIDS was very negative. The press blamed drug users and gay men for the disease – and some church leaders claimed that it was God's punishment on gay men and drug addicts. This reporting led to growing alarm.

Gradually, there was more acceptance and less stigma attached to HIV and AIDS. In 1996 came unexpected news: scientists had devised drugs called ‘anti-retrovirals’ that delayed the onset of AIDS in people infected with HIV.

The first step in improving things was in 1909 when there was a ban on building any more back to back houses. And then there was the Housing Act in 1919. It introduced new council houses. Councils had to build and rent decent houses for the poor.

Dr Niven visited factories and schools to find out how the flu affected sufferers; kept detailed records of each case and looked for patterns. He tried to find a flu vaccine. As well as this research, he recommended that schools were closed and cinemas and theatres were disinfected between shows.

1964 -TV adverts for cigarettes were banned. 1971 – health warnings on packets. In 1998, that’s when the government agreed to fund nicotine replacement patches. And 2007 was probably the biggest change, when smoking was banned in public places, because of the damage caused by passive smoking.

Reliable canning was a big change. Canned foods became more common in the early twentieth century, and people liked them because food kept longer and didn’t go off. The other big change was how food was sold. Chains of grocery stores like Sainsbury’s became more popular because they were open every day.

He also issued advice about how washing hands, covering faces with masks and using handkerchiefs could slow the spread of the flu. Although 2000 people did die of Spanish flu in Manchester, far more died in other cities, so Dr Niven’s efforts to contain the flu seem to have worked.

There was some evidence that smoking caused cancer, but the government was reluctant to interfere. They thought that it was a matter of choice, not a public health issue. So they didn’t do anything. The government clearly didn’t want to get involved before there was firm proof that smoking caused lung cancer.

Between 1918 and 1919 at least 50 million people worldwide died from an outbreak of influenza. This outbreak was first noticed in Spain, and known as Spanish flu.

Living Conditions

1. What lifestyle factors have proven to cause illness?

2. How has housing improved since 1900?

3. How has people’s diet changed since 1900?

Disease/Epidemics

1. How many people died of Spanish Flu?

2. How did Dr Niven try to prevent Spanish Flu?

3. What did people think caused AIDS?

4. How did people try to prevent AIDS?


1. What is the NHS?

2. What other changes were made by the government from 1900?

3. How has the government dealt with the smoking crisis?


❑ Write a clear and organised summary which analyses beliefs about,

and responses to, the Spanish Flu. [9]

❑ How did people’s living conditions in 20th Century Britain impact their

health? [10]

❑ ‘The changes in health since 1900 tell a simple story of progress’. How

far do you agree? [18]


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