Do You Agree with the View That the Main Factor Encouraging the Improvement of Public Health Provision in Britain in the Years 1833–75 Was the Fear of Further Outbreaks of Cholera?

Do you agree with the view that the main factor encouraging the improvement of public health provision in Britain in the years 1833–75 was the fear of further outbreaks of cholera?

At first glance it’s easy to see that both sources 13 and 14 offer why the government should act on cholera and explain the fears of it returning again. Not only this but it states the important like it had to water and this was a major problem for public health and it was difficult to develop a way around the situation. On the other hand, dedicated individuals were a main factor encouraging the improvement of public health as people such as Chadwick and Simon played an important role into research and development of disease and how it was caused. Source 15 explains this in some detail and also offers the explanation as to how even the epidemics of cholera hadn’t caused as big an impact as hoped as the government weren’t acting quickly enough. Source 14 also shows that it wasn’t just the fear of further cholera outbreaks but outbreaks of other life threatening diseases such as typhoid fever and other similar diseases. Living conditions are also shown to have had an impact on public health and individuals such as Dr. James Kay showed this by referencing peoples living habits to how they live their moral lives.

Source 13 is a resolution passes in 1833, a year after the first cholera epidemic. It states that cholera was most common among those who lived in places where drainage wasn’t at its best. My knowledge tells me that this was a problem for tackling cholera as the waste from those already suffering was being washed back into the water supply, continuously passing on the disease. This cholera outbreak affected a lot of people and resulted in an extremely high mortality rate of 32,000 deaths. This caused a lot of fear and panic among citizens and although local boards of health were set up, they were only temporary and once the first epidemic had died down, they were disbanded....