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Example research essay topic: Nineteenth Century Oxford Companion - 2,623 words

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... over arrived, the most important actions and pursuits were those by the medical field. To a degree, they held the fate of the country in their ideals. Throughout the century, the medical profession advanced and with that advancement came changes in ideology and doctrine. With these changes came more correct answers and more improvements in peoples lives, in this case in improved sanitation. However, with these changes came jealousy and aggression.

Each scientist seemed to be working for the good of the career and not the good of the country. With each new idea as to the cause of and the spread of disease, came a new test that proved the theory to be invalid. Not until Koch made his discoveries and they were tested and verified numerous time was there a general agreement as to the cause and effects of disease. The first centers around the idea of contagion versus non-contagion.

The idea of contagion centers around the principle that cholera is exchanged person to person 63. On the other hand, anti-contagion ist believe the opposite idea. For example the anticontagionist say cholera is a result of decaying organic matter and their odors, or miasma 64. Early on, the medical community was predominantly contagion ist 65. This can be seen in that the first epidemic, when the medical community tended towards contagion, much quarantine was initiated to isolate cholera patients 66 and not allow them to spread the disease. However, these quarantines failed dramatically 67.

These quarantine failure helped to lead to international attempts to limit disease 68, with Great Britain in the lead 69. As a result of the failed quarantines, the medical community shifted their ideology from contagion to anti contagion. This is when the numerous theories of disease began to come about. For example, by the late 1830 s, Chadwick and Southwood Smith had given Great Britain official doctrine 70. Chadwick and Smith promoted the miasma theory of disease 71.

Smith took a vested interest in discovering the origins of disease 72. He argued that local conditions create disease, and since disease is non contagion, the same local conditions must be present elsewhere for the disease to arrive 73. Therefore, Smith concluded that if air was cleaner and more pure, then disease would not have the proper conditions to appear there 74. Smith and Chadwick still dominated public health and continued to press parliament for legislation on public health 75. The first Public Health Act was created in 1848, setting up local boards of health 76. These boards were mainly created to monitor local conditions and keep the town neat and free of disease 77.

This goes further to show that Smith and Chadwick were subscribing to the local conditions, anticontagionist theory. The next major controversy revolved around the role that water and air had in the spread of cholera. The first major water-born theorist was John Snow 78. Snow was a York born doctor that worked with cholera patients in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne during the 1832 epidemic 79.

He staunchly believed that water was the main factor in causing and perpetuation cholera. He set out to test the Broad Street pump 80, which was believed to be the sight of origin of the 1854 epidemics 80. Snows doctrine stated: This doctrine is, that cholera propagates itself by a morbid matter which, passing from one patient in his evacuations, is accidentally swallowed by other persons as a pollution of food or water; that an increase in the swallowed germ of the disease takes place in the interior of the stomach and bowels, giving rise to the essential The temporary Board of Health in 1854 set up the Medical Council to study that years cholera and in a way, dispute Snows findings 82. There conclusion was that there was no reason to adopt Snows cholera explanation 83. We do no find it established that the water was contaminated in the manner alleged; nor is there before us any sufficient evidence to show whether inhabitants of the districts drinking from that well, suffered in proportion more than other inhabitants of the district In Hampstead, there was an isolated victim of cholera who had been purchasing Broad Street Pump water, because of better taste. This was the clinching piece of data for Snow 85.

In regards to this, the Council all but ignored it 86. With Snows theories not being accepted by the medical community for several reasons, several scientists and medical professionals set out to prove that the air, or things in the air are the major cause for the arrival of cholera to particular districts. For example, there was the cholera-fungus theory produced in 1849. Three leading scientists, Budd, Swayne and Brittan, belonging to the Microscpical Subcommittee of Bristol, analyzed rice water samples of recently deceased cholera victims 87.

All three scientists found the same results 88. On this basis, Brittan made another study isolating atmospheric fluid of a house where five cholera patients were living 89. His findings there matched the earlier findings and he released his results 90. Upon the release of the information, Budd contended that he went further then Brittan and found a living organism of distinct species that appeared to be a fungus 91. The General Board of Health seemed to accept these ideas more as they published reports about how to avoid the fungus in the Times 92. Another theory was in a way popularly accepted by the poor.

As has been stated there was a period of time when the poor thought that the rich were trying to poison them with the cholera for several reasons, such as, the needs for bodies at universities for students to study and for the desire of the rich to no longer support the poor financially with aid. The poison theory was furthered by several scientists, including William Farr and Justus Liebig 93. Liebig was an organic chemist 94 who used chemical analysis on human blood to show that poisons were introduced to the body and through the air and then through organic reactions manifest themselves within the blood and poison the person 95. Liebig claimed his ideas to be anticontagionist because he claimed that the infected person could not pass on the disease, only infected air or infected blood could effect a new victim 96.

Upon publishing of Liebig's reports, employee at the General Registers Board, William Farr endorsed these as proper explanations and adapted them into his own ideology 97. This was beneficial to Liebig as well because Farr was a respected member of society by both the medical community and the lay people. There are numerous other theories, reports and conclusions, including the small pox analogy claiming that cholera is breathed in like small pox 98, making it a contagious disease. All of these theories, if they were accepted, helped to further the careers of many medical men. Often, these men had thriving practices or they turned to writing about epidemic diseases such as cholera as a result of their success. However, these competing theories acted to slow severely the progress of public health.

Some people claimed that water needed to be cleaned, some thought that the air needed to be clean, some thought both. Some people believed that cholera victims should be quarantined because they were contagious to others, while some medical men believed that cholera only spread as a result of local environmental conditions which help to manifest cholera. Eventually, it was proven that there is only one cause for cholera, and with this discovery came final sanitation reforms and cholera vaccines, helping to avoid any further In conclusion, cholera is a disease that ran rampant through much of Europe and Asia during the nineteenth century. Many hundreds of thousands of people died and nearly an equal number more people suffered with cholera but survived 99. In Great Britain, cholera effected them during four epidemics: 1832, 1848, 1854, and 1866, with the most severe being in 1848. It took the country around 35 years to improve sanitary and environmental conditions enough so that later epidemics did not effect them.

This long period of time that sanitary improvement required was based on several reasons. One of these reasons is the fact that the medical community could not agree on the causes of cholera. There were numerous theories about contagion and anti-contagion, water-born and air-born, miasmas, poisons and theories relating to fungi and blood infection. All of these differing opinions slowed the growth of knowledge as to the cause and preventive measures of diseases.

Another stumbling point with sanitation progress was that sanitation improvements first came to large cities that had the money to improve pipes, drains and sewers, and not necessarily to the overcrowded, impoverished cities that needed the water sanitation the most. This meant that cities, such as Birmingham, that were not severely hit during the four epidemics saw the first sanitary reform measures, while cities, such as Wigan, saw sanitary measures much later in the century. As a result of the scientific community finally reaching a consensus as to the cause of diseases, and their acceptance of ideas such as the germ theory, two positive results came about. Naturally, sanitation reform followed and England has seen only extremely rare and isolated cases of cholera in the twentieth century. Another positive aspect of medical improvement is faith from the lay people in the medical community as a whole. As was shown earlier, during these epidemics, the lay people criticized the medical community more then any group because the lay people believed that all of the cholera and disease was in some way caused by the medical community.

With improvements in medical knowledge came increased government financial and political support to continue with further studies to find more answers about diseases. Finally, with modern enhancements cholera has nearly been eradicated in most first world countries throughout the world, including Great Britain. The lay people now have indoor plumbing and no longer live in direct contact with their own feces. The overcrowding that many industrialized cities faced during the early Industrial Revolution has been reduced greatly. People now enjoy a greater standard of living and no longer face the daily threat of epidemic diseases such as cholera. Bibliography: References: 1.

Sheldon Watts, Epidemics and history: disease, power and imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 167. 2. Stuart Flexner, The Random House dictionary of the English Language (NY: Random House, 1987). 3. Jose Sanchez, Cholera, The Lancet, vol 349 (1997), p. 1826. 4. Sanchez, Cholera, p, 1827. 5. Cholera, Encyclopedia of Medical History (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1988), p. 59. 6. Medical History, p. 59. 7.

The London Times, Prevention Better than cure, 17 September 1892. 8. John Cannon (ed. ), The Oxford Companion to British History (NY: Garland Publishing, 1988), p. 203. 9. Christopher Hamlin, A Science of Impurity: water analysis in nineteenth century Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 2. 10. Klaus-John Dodds, Much ado about nothing? : cholera, local politics and public health in nineteenth century Reading, The Local Historian, vol 21 (1991), p. 168. 11. M. Calcott, The challenge of cholera: the last epidemic at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northern History, vol 20 (1984), p. 176. 12.

Calcott, The challenge of cholera, p. 167. 13. Calcott, The challenge of cholera, p. 176. 14. Calcott, The challenge of cholera, p. 176. 15. Calcott, The challenge of cholera, pp. 176 - 177. 16. RJ Morris, Religion and medicine: the cholera pamphlets of Oxford, 1832, 1849, and 1854, Medical History, vol 19 (1975), p. 256. 17. Morris, Religion and medicine, p. 256. 18.

Morris, Religion and medicine, p. 257. 19. Margaret Barnet, The 1832 cholera epidemic in York, Medical History, vol 16 (1972), p. 28. 20. Barnett, The 1832 epidemic, p. 30. 21. Asa Briggs, Cholera and society in the nineteenth century, Past and Present, vol 19 (1961), p. 78. 22. Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 78. 23. Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 79. 24.

Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 79. 25. Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 79. 26. Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 79. 27. Briggs, Cholera and society, p. 79. 28. Richard Evans, Epidemics and Revolutions: cholera in nineteenth century Europe, Past and Present, vol 120 (1985), p. 130. 29. William Luckin, The find catastrophe-cholera in London, 1866, Medical History, vol 21 (1977), p. 32. 30.

Luckin, The final catastrophe, p. 33. 31. Margaret Pelling, Cholera, fever and English medicine 1825 - 1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), p. 2. 32. Michael Durey, The Return of the plague (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1979), p, 7. 33. The London Times, Cholera and plague in London, 11 November 1831. 34. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 27. 35.

Durey, Return of the plague, p. 32. 36. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 39. 37. Medical History, p. 59. 38. Evans, Epidemics and revolutions, p. 128. 39. Evans, Epidemics and revolutions, p. 129. 40. Evans, Epidemics and revolutions, p. 130. 41.

Evans, Epidemics and revolutions, p. 131. 42. Durey, Return of the plague, pp. 155 - 156. 43. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 160. 44. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 177. 45.

Watts, Epidemics and history, p. 190. 46. Hamlin, A Science of impurity, p. 68. 47. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 47. 48. Barnett, The 1832 epidemic, p. 32. 49. Barnett, The 1832 epidemic, p. 32. 50. Watts, Epidemics and history, p. 192. 51.

Watts, Epidemics and history, p. 192. 52. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 180. 53. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 135. 54. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 139. 55.

Durey, Return of the plague, p. 139. 56. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 139. 57. Sally Mitchell (ed. ), Victorian Britain (NY: Garland Publishing, 1988), p. 149. 58. Mitchell, Victorian Britain, p. 150. 59. Mitchell, Victorian Britain, p. 150. 60. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 149. 61.

Durey, Return of the plague, p. 156. 62. Durey, Return of the plague, p. 157. 63. Mitchell, Victorian Britain, p. 149. 64. Nigel Paneth, Public health then and now. A rivalry of foulness: official and unofficial investigations of the cholera epidemic of 1854, American Journal of Public Health, vol 88 (1998), p. 1549. 65. Mitchell, Victorian Britain, p. 149. 66.

Ann Hardy, Cholera, quarantine and the English preventive system, 1850 - 1895, Medical History, vol 37 (1993), p. 251. 67. Hardy, Cholera, quarantine, p. 251. 68. Hardy, Cholera, quarantine, p. 252. 69. Hardy, Cholera, quarantine, p. 253. 70.

Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 3. 71. Mitchell, Victorian Britain, p. 149. 72. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 24. 73. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 24. 74. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 25. 75. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 27. 76.

Christopher Hamlin, Public Health and social justice in the age of Chadwick (NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 189. 77. Hamlin, Public health, p. 192. 78. Cannon, Oxford Companion, p. 203. 79. Watts, Epidemics and history, p. 169. 80. Paneth, Public health then and now, p. 1549. 81. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 204. 82.

Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 222. 83. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 224. 84. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 224. 85. Michael Sigsworth, The publics view of public health in mid-Victorian Britain, Urban History, vol 21 (1994), p. 243. 86. Sigsworth, The publics view, p. 249. 87. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 163. 88.

Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 163. 89. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 165. 90. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 165. 91. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 170. 92. The London Times, General Board of Health Directions and Regulations, 06 November 1848. 93. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 113. 94.

Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 120. 95. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 121. 96. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 121. 97. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 144. 98. Pelling, Cholera, fever, p. 250.


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