After the Public Heath Acts of 1872 and 1875, British local
authorities bore statutory obligations to carry out sanitary
improvements. Richardson explores public health strategy and
central-local government relations during the
mid-nineteenth-century, using the experience of Uppingham, England,
as a micro-historical case study. Uppingham is a small (and
unusually well-documented) market town which contains a boarding
school. Despite legal changes enforcing sanitary reform, the town
was hit three times by typhoid in 1875–1876. Richardson examines
the conduct of those involved in town and school, the economic
dependence of the former on the latter, and the opposition to
higher rates to pay for sanitary improvement by a local ratepayer
"shopocracy." He compares the sanitary state of the community with
others nearby, and Uppingham School with comparable schools of that
era. Improvement was often determined by business considerations
rather than medical judgments, and local personalities and events
frequently drove national policy in practice. This study
illuminates wider themes in Victorian public medicine, including
the difficulty of diagnosing typhoid before breakthroughs in
bacteriological research, the problems local officialdom faced in
implementing reform, and the length of time it took London ideas
and practice to filter into rural areas.
General
Imprint: |
University of Pittsburgh Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century |
Release date: |
June 2021 |
Authors: |
Nigel Richardson
|
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
288 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8229-6645-6 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8229-6645-X |
Barcode: |
9780822966456 |
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