History Mock Exam

1. History Mock Exam • Your exam is on Thursday November 15th at 12.50pm and lasts for one hour. • This week will be spent revising for your exams.

2. The People’s Health For each time period, you need to know; • Beliefs, attitudes and values of the time • Living conditions-Food, water, waste, housing • Disease-Cause, belief of the cause and government response • Impact of the response on health • 1250-1500 • This is called the medieval period • 1500-1750 • This is called the early modern period • 1750-1900 • This is called the industrial era • You will be examined up to beliefs and living conditions.

3. The People’s Health Revision • Notes have been provided for you and you can also use the textbook. • All of these were added to the shared area and homework folder for your revision over half term. • For each time period, you need to make notes on your sheet under the headings provided • Overview: General summary of beliefs, attitudes and values at this time • Living conditions-Summary of four • Epidemics-Spread of disease, cause (real and the one believed at the time) and impact. • Improvements (or lack of)-This can be people or government • 1250-1500 • This is called the medieval period • 1500-1750 • This is called the early modern period • 1750-1900 • This is called the industrial era • You will be examined up to beliefs and living conditions. There are also sample questions for you to complete or plan when finished a topic

4. Question 1 You will be asked three 1 mark questions. These need a one sentence answer Name one problem in medieval towns? What supplied water to poorer citizens in towns in Early Modern Britain? Name a technology created in Industrial times that transformed peoples lives? What was a gongfermer? Identify one way waste was disposed on in medieval towns? Name one person who helped Health progress in Industrial Britain? What improvements were made to food in the 1800s? Identify one example of poor health in Industrial Britain? Name two diseases which became prevalent in Industrial Britain? Identify one feature of town life in Early Modern Britain that had not changed since medieval times? Name of plague order of Early Modern Britain? What caused respiratory diseases in Early Modern Britain?

5. Write a clear and organised summary that analyses living conditions from 1250-1500 Write a clear and organised summary that analyses living conditions in the early modern era Write a clear and organised summary that analyses living conditions from 1750-1900 Write a clear and organised summary that analyses peoples response to the Black Death. Support your summary with examples Write a clear and organised summary that analyses the responses of local and national government to plague in early modern Britain. Support your summary with examples

6. Explain why living conditions in Early Modern Britain caused health problems. Support your answer with examples. Explain why responses of local and national government to plague in early modern Britain had little impact. Support your answer with examples Explain why public health in monasteries was so good. Support your answer with examples. Why did the ‘gin craze’ cause so many problems for the government? Support your answer with examples. Why did the living conditions of early modern people cause health problems? Support your answer with examples. Why was public health in medieval monasteries so good? Explain your answer. Why has increased government involvement in public health been unpopular

8. How far do you agree that the authorities in Early Modern Britain made greater attempts to improve public health than the authorities in the Middle Ages? Give reasons for your answer. [18] ‘A lack of scientific understanding and technology were the most important factors preventing improvements in public health in the period 1250 to 1750.’ How far do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. [18] ‘Beliefs and attitudes were the most important factors preventing improvements in public health in the period 1250 to 1750.’ How far do you agree? Give reasons for your answer. [18]

9. The People’s Health Revision • Notes have been provided for you and you can also use the textbook. • All of these were added to the shared area and homework folder for your revision over half term. • For each time period, you need to make notes on your sheet under the headings provided • Overview: General summary of beliefs, attitudes and values at this time • Living conditions-Summary of four • Epidemics-Spread of disease, cause (real and the one believed at the time) and impact. • Improvements (or lack of)-This can be people or government • 1250-1500 • This is called the medieval period • 1500-1750 • This is called the early modern period • 1750-1900 • This is called the industrial era • 1900-Present • This is called 1900 to the present day/modern era There are also sample questions for you to complete or plan when finished a topic

10. Britain 1250-1500 - Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? Overview: Features of life at this time: • Life in Towns • ROADS AND STREETS:Peasants used the same cart to transport waste to the midden/cess pits. No refrigeration meant drovers would walk livestock to market, making the roads muddy. • MARKETS AND SHOPS:Markets were central to town life. These markets included: Tailors making clothes, barbers washing and shaving customers, sellers of herbs and spices. • TOWN’S WATER AND WASTE:Some market squares had a conduit. The earliest conduits were built by the Church. Cathedrals needed fresh water for acts of worship and they could afford to lay the pipes. Street vendors and taverns sold hot food and ale. Some made pies from gone off meat. • Tavern ale was strong brewed ale and drunkenness was a problem despite the Church warning about the sin of gluttony. Some towns began to build public latrines for the public and employ rakersto clear up waste on streets. • SMELL: Some industries created smell as well as waste. People believed smell caused disease – miasma. • Life in countryside: • BREAD: Peasants worked hard on the land, their lives depended on it. A good harvest gave the chance of health and comfort. A bad harvest meant a lack of food, which meant death. Example: The Great Famine of 1315-16. Certain fungus grew on rye (the grain used to make bread for the poor), and this fungus caused Ergotism. • WATER: Villages needed a stream or spring that provided water. Springs would fill up wells for people to draw water from. Streams turned water wheels. Fullers polluted the streams. Villagers probably drank more water than those in the towns, but they had other options such as cider, or mead. • HOUSES: Houses varied in size, with the biggest belonging to the lord of the manor. Some peasants lived in simple houses with walls made of woven sticks covered in mud. • GARDENS AND WASTE: Nuts were gathered from the woods, honey from beehives, milk and cheese from cows or sheep, and eggs from hens, diets were healthy. • In each garden was a midden heap (rubbish heap). Household, animal and human waste would be thrown onto the heap. Waste from cesspits or middenswas valuable for fertilising the soil. Limits of technology: No lenses = Germs unknown. No microscopes = People know nothing of germs, the true cause of disease. No printing = books were handwritten, mostly by the church.Information was spread by word of mouth only. Religion: People believed God caused illness = Pray for a cure rather than go to a doctor. Stopped them looking for other causes. Caring for the sickhelped medicine and public health, believing they had do it to get in to heaven. Kings: servants of God: Medieval kings mostly detrimental to the health of citizens by not investing in public health. Influence of ancient ideas: The four humours was a rational explanation for illness, rather than supernatural. Key Terms: Germs: The cause of disease The four humours: Ancient idea suggesting that when humours eg blood was out of balance this caused illness. Migration – In this case movement of people from countryside to towns Public health – How those in power provided healthcare for the people Great Famine – Due to change in weather and bad harvests – 10% population died Ergotism – bacteria on grain of rye bread (for poor) caused this disease Conduit – At this time made of lead, transported water Public latrines – public toilets Miasma – Belief that bad smells caused illness Cesspit – A waste pit Growth of towns Migration to towns from countryside Started to become crowded. Some basic rules brought in to organise public health.

11. Britain 1250-1500 epidemics - Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? • THE BLACK DEATH • ARRIVAL AND SPREAD: • Epidemics were common because of the poor food and dirty living conditions. Such as: Ergotism, typhoid and dysentery, but none compared to plague. • Arrived from China in England in 1348. Within weeks it had struck London and Bristol. By 1349 it had spread to Wales, Northern England and Ireland. • Plague was caused was a germ which lived in the guts of fleas. When the flea bit its victim it spreads the disease. Black rats carried the plague. Medieval people did not make the link between plague, flea and rat. • HORROR AND HELPLESSNESS: • There was no cure for the plague, but many treatments were tried. • They were so desperate for a cure they even tied live toads or chickens to the buboes. • Blood letting was common for any illness involving a fever, and aimed to restore balance to the four humours, but would make the patient weaker. • Nothing worked, and by 1348 the number of wills made in London was 15 times higher than it had been in 1347. • SHORT TERM IMPACT: • No matter what people did to protect themselves, the plague could not be stopped. 60% of population died. The death rate impacted on daily life: • Priests unable to give ‘last rites’ to dying victims. • Individual burials stopped, instead people were buried in mass graves. • Some priests too scared to visit sick. Instead they fled their parishes. • Towns were worst hit, and people forced ill family members, even children, out onto the street. Rich moved to countryside to find pure air. Others locked themselves up in their homes, threw waste out of the window. • April 1349 King Edward III wrote to the Mayor of London • telling him to clean up the streets. Apart from this, the government did little. • LONG TERM IMPACT: • The Black Death in England died down during 1350, but it struck again in 1361-62 and there were twenty more outbreaks before 1500. • Even though people believed it was God’s punishment, plague became a constant fear, and skeletons representing death became a common image in pictures, jewellery and tombstones of the period. • After 1400 plague was restricted mainly to the towns. This meant that mayors and councils were encouraged to keep towns clean, but it wasn’t easy. • See IMPROVEMENTS for more Long Term impacts. GOD’S PUNISHMENT: Plague or disaster was seen as a punishment from God or the Devil testing their faith. People would pray for healing, ask a priest to pray for them with a lit candle. In 1349 so many candles were being used that wax prices soared. To claim God’s favour people did many things: · Priests urged people to confess their sins.. · Groups of flagellants came to England from northern Europe. They went around whipping their backs. They believed that if they suffered on behalf of others, God would take away the plague. • OTHER BELIEVED CAUSES: • · Blaming unusual movement of the planets. • · Miasma theory, that bad air was common • when the air smelled or was full of sin. • · They believed miasma could enter through sweaty skin. So they thought it was dangerous to bathe or exercise. People carried around flowers to purify the air. • · Some thought you could catch it by looking a victim in the eye. • · The most vulnerable were those whose humours were out of balance due to a bad diet. Key Terms: Epidemics: A disease that affects a large number of people at the same time Germs: The cause of disease Ergotism – bacteria on grain of rye bread (for poor) caused this disease Black Death – Plague that hit England in 1348 The four humours: Ancient idea suggesting that when humours eg blood was out of balance this caused illness. Blood Letting – Draining blood to re-balance humours

12. Britain 1250-1500 improvement- Did anyone really care about health in medieval England? PUBLIC HEALTH IN TOWNS AND MONASTERIES In the 13th century, the church set the highest standards in hygiene. They would have infirmaries for the ill, latrines above the river to flush waste away, fresh spring water piped into the kitchens and washing areas. This was because they needed fresh water for: · Blessings and used in baptisms and other services. · Mixed with the wine sipped during mass. · Used to wash the silver cups after mass. · For monks and nuns to wash, and bathe. It provided drinking and washing water, as well as baths for sick townspeople being treated by nuns. · Bringing water over long distances was expensive. A cathedral however could afford pipes, and so town conduits were extensions from the cathedral pipes. · By 1500 this was changing, and standards in monasteriesbegan to drop and towns became richer, and willing to spend money on health and hygiene. Actions taken by London authorities after the Black death: • TOWN AUTHORITIES AND HEALTH • · Towns were dirty in the Middle Ages, but there were efforts to clean them up. • · London led the way in public health in England. • It piped spring water to its citizens since the 1230’s, possibly the first city in Western Europe to do so. • Despite the Black Death, the population grew from 25,000 in 1250 to almost 100,000 in 1500. • · The city was crowded and dirty, and it was the duty of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to run London’s affairs. Many were wealthy, and members of the Guilds. Public health care provided by 3 town authorities: Key Terms: Hygiene: Keeping clean Conduits: At this time made of lead, transported water

13. Overview: Features of life at this time: Britain 1500-1750: Was it more of the same in early modern England? • FOOD AND FAMINE • Those who could afford it still ate a large quantity, and a wide variety of meat. The custom of eating fish on Friday continued. • The wealthy enjoyed white bread, and their diet included some salad leaves, vegetables and fruit. The wealthy had plenty to eat, but it was not balanced. • People drank wine, ale, beer or mead as they knew that dirty water would make them ill. • Merchantsbrought new products to England from America and Asia, and people who could afford it ate a wider variety of food. • New drinks like chocolate, tea and coffee became popular, all sweetened with sugar from the West Indies. By 1750 there were over 500 coffee houses in London. We begin to see poor dental hygiene. • The diet of the poor was mainly bread and vegetables, with eggs, cheese, fish or meat as occasional treats. • Pottage was still eaten by labourers. The daily wage was barely enough for food, and families struggled to buy bread. Although famines were less frequent, If there were bad harvests people would starve to death. • In 1623-24 there was famine in Northern England, and hunger weakened peoples resistance to disease. • WASTE • People would put their waste in a basket outside their house, and once or twice a week it was collected by scavengers who sold the urban waste to farmers in the country. If you forgot to do this you could throw it on the communal heap outside the town gates. • Getting rid of human waste was difficult. In 1596 Sir John Harrington invented the first flushing toilet, but people would need their own drains and a plentiful water supply to have one. They were not widely used. • Nearly everyone continued to use privies/ latrines, and nothing changed in the country, but in the town dealing with this waste was a problem. • If you lived by the river or ditch, you might build a privy over them to drop waste directly into, but most people built them above a cesspit in their garden. • Every year or two cesspits would be emptied by scavengers, usually at night. It was an expensive job which required barrels of excrement to be carried through houses. Some of the poor would empty their own. • Growing Towns - Towns grew quickly as more people moved from countryside to seek work. Eg. 1700, the number of people in Bath had doubled.However, towns (apart from London) stayed quite small. Daily Bread – Hardly anyone died of starvation as they had done in previous centuries. The population of England doubled from 3 million in 1550 to nearly 6 million in 1750, but improvements in agriculture meant that by the 1700s there was enough food. • New Discoveries - People searched for a scientific way of understanding the world. Robert Hooke invented a powerful microscope. However, it would be another 200 years before a scientist made the connection between germs and disease. Plague still not understood. FOOD AND FAMINE- Diets and food did not change much. The wealthy had white bread, some salad leaves, vegetables and fruit. The wealthy had plenty, but it was not balanced. People drank wine, ale, beer or mead as they knew that dirty water would make them ill. New drinks like chocolate, tea and coffee became popular, all sweetened with sugar. This led to poor dental hygiene. Pottagewas still eaten by labourers. During this period however, the daily wage was barely enough for food, If there were bad harvests people would starve to death. • The Alehouse - Number of alehouses in villages and towns grew rapidly . The common people went to the alehouse to drink, eat, dance, gamble and flirt. From the 1570s they could also enjoy a pipe of tobacco, unaware of what it was doing to their lungs. New printing - The printing presstransformed people’s lives. Multiple copies of paper books and pamphlets could be made quickly and cheaply. New ideas could spread quickly. Some old ideas were slow to disappear eg witches. WASTE - Waste put in a basket outside houses, and once or twice a week it was collected by scavengers who sold the urban waste to farmers in the country. Getting rid of human waste was difficult. In 1596 Sir John Harrington invented the first flushing toilet, but people would need their own drains and a plentiful water supply to have one. They were not widely used. Nearly everyone continued to use privies/ latrines. Most people built them above a cesspit in their garden. Key Terms: Alehouse – What we call a ‘pub’ today. Printing press – A machine invented to make multiple copies of a piece of writing Pottage – Staple of a poor persons diet. A thick vegetable soup Scavengers – People who collected waste and sold it to farmers Privies/latrines – Toilets Merchants – Travellers who brought back feed, drink and commodities to sell • Growing Power of Parliament - Between 1500 and 1750, monarchs continued to play an important role in government, although parliament was much more powerful than it had been in the Middle Ages. In the early eighteenth century only 3% of adults could vote in elections.

14. The Urban Environment - In the early modern period, people in towns bought their food from shops, markets and street sellers. In an age before freezers and plastic packaging, food did not stay fresh for very long, and the chances of food poisoning were high Britain 1500-1750: Was it more of the same in early modern England? CLEAN WATER People cared about keeping their clothes and sheets clean. But cleanliness depended on your wealth. Rich would employ people to wash their clothes, and the poor probably had one set of clothes. They would be infested with fleas and lice which caused typhus and the plague. People didn't wash that often in the early modern period for many reasons: 1. Bathing inside was impossible without a bathtub, servants, enough water, a fire and plenty of time. 2. Soap made from left over animal fat of candle makers could be used on clothes, but wasn't good for using on skin. Only the rich could afford soap made of olive oil. 3. The water would often be dirty and many believed water could infect through the pores in the skin. Cleaning was a dry process. As towns grew, obtaining water became difficult, some were lucky and had wells. Three other methods to get water: 1. Paying for water to be piped into your home: In some towns companies constructed pipes of elm or lead in order to pipe in water. 2. Collecting water from a conduit: These were public fountains. 3. Buying water from a water-seller: you could buy it in the street, or have it brought to your door. StreetsOften streets were just beaten earth or gravel, which turned to dust in summer and to mud as soon as it rained. Main streets were sometimes paved with stone or cobbled, but paved streets were often covered in animal dung. Before the eighteenth century, there were very few raised pavements so people’s clothes and shoes were often very dirty after walking in the streets. AnimalsIn early modern towns, people shared the streets with animals. Horse-drawn carts blocked the way and sometimes injured or killed small children. Cattle, sheep and geese were herded to be sold or slaughtered. The many loose dogs were a particular problem as their excrement contained parasites that could be spread to humans. Cats were common, but they could not control the rats and mice which flourished in early modern towns HousesMany houses were overcrowded. Poor families squashed into cellars and upper storeys, and sharing beds was common. Houses continued to be poorly constructed in the early modern period and this meant that they were often draughty and damp. No wonder many people suffered from respiratory diseases. SmokeIn the period 1500–1750 people heated their houses and did their cooking on open fires. In the sixteenth century coal was unpopular because it gave off a foul smell when burnt, but when the price of coal dropped in the seventeenth century more people began to burn it on their fires. Urban craftsmen also burnt coal in their ovens, forges and furnaces. The dust, soot and smoke from chimneys in early modern towns contributed to respiratory diseases. Key Terms: Respiratory diseases – Diseases of the lungs caused by early modern living conditions Typhus – Disease caused by animal bacteria Water-seller – You could buy water from them or have it delivered

15. Britain 1500-1750 epidemics: Was it more of the same in early modern England? Epidemics of the early modern period: RESPONSES TO THE PLAGUEIn the 16th century the average life expectancy was only 41 years, due to the high level of infant deaths and the killer diseases; the main one being PLAGUE! • PLAGUE WAS TERRIFYING BECAUSE OF ITS FREQUENCY: • Plague began with the Black Death in 1348-49, and ended with the Great Plague of 1665. • 8 major plagues broke out between 1500 and 1670, an outbreak every 20 years. • In the 1540’s and 1550s, the late 1590s and 1600 there were several outbreaks, and became more of a disease in the townswhere rats were common. • PLAGUE WAS TERRIFYING BECAUSE OF ITS SYMPTOMS: • Bubonic plague was most common. The first symptom was a blister where the victim had been bitten, this then became a buboe. • Their temperature rose to 40 Celsius and was followed by headaches, vomiting, thirst and terrible pain. In the groin and armpits and neck (lymph nodes) buboes formed. The heart and kidneys began to fail. • Only 1 in 5 survived. Most died 5 days after being bitten. • PLAGUE WAS TERRIFYING BECAUSE OF ITS IMPACT: • Plague struck suddenly. It mostly came in spring when the weather became warmer, and in the summer when flea and rat numbers increased, then death increased as well. • It usually killed 10% of a community in less than a year, and in some cases this could be 1/3. The poor were the hardest hit. • The 1665 plague in Cambridge had a devastating affect on a family. On 1stSeptember the teenager, Daniel Pawston was the first of his family to die... The door was nailed shut and the family locked inside, and ‘lord have mercy on us’ painted on the door. Inside were Daniel’s parents, his 2 brothers, and his sister. By 18thSeptember they were all dead! • PLAGUE WAS TERRIFYING BECAUSE NOBODY UNDERSTOOD IT: • Early modern people tried to learn about the cause of the plague to try and stop it. Medical books and pamphlets increased rapidly after 1550, but actual medical knowledge made little progress. • People continued to see it as God’s punishment for sins. They thought God created a particular star pattern which would cause miasma. At the end of the 17thcentury some people were arguing of the importance of contagion (the close contact with the infected) as a way of spreading the disease, but they also clung on to miasma. There was still no understanding of the role of rats and fleas. • After 1667 plague never returned to England. It may be because of effective measures in Europe which stopped the spread of disease, would prevent it spreading to England.

16. Britain 1500-1750 epidemics: Was it more of the same in early modern England? • NATIONAL GOVERNMENT RESPONSES TO THE PLAGUE • The government of England however began to learn from other European countries on how to fight plague. • In 1518: • Henry VIII issued a proclamation : isolation. This would become the most important aspect of prevention over the following 500 years. It stated that houses should be clearly identified. Bundles of straw should be hung from windows and anyone leaving the house had to carry a white stick so people knew to avoid them. This proclamation was the beginning of national policy on public health. From 1518 Mayors and aldermen in all towns were expected to take action when plague struck. As well as shutting up houses, some corporations but the victims in ‘pesthouses’ outside the town walls. During the 1550’s the aldermen in York posted ‘watchmen’ to stop the movement of infected people across town, ‘searchers’ to bury the dead and clean infected houses, and collected money from each parish to provide for the infected houses. • In 1578: • The Privy Council of Elizabeth I ordered the printing of Plague Orders which were sent out to towns and counties of England. The printing press became an important weapon in the fight against plague. Local authorities printed summaries of Plague Orders and stuck then to doors for people to read. The orders included: • They should appoint ‘viewers’ or ‘searchers’ of the dead in each parish who would report on how the infection developed. • No dogs, cats or tame pigeons should be allowed on the street. • Special prayers should be said in church. • Streets and alleys should be thoroughly cleaned. • Barrels of tar should be burned in the streets • Infected houses in towns should be completely shut up for at least 6 weeks, with all family members, sick or healthy, inside. Watchmen should be appointed to inforce this. • In 1604: • Parliament passed a law to enforce new plague orders. The Plague Act of 1604 extended the help offered to sick families. It allowed towns to gather money first from parishes within 5 miles of the town, and then from the whole county. It introduced harsh punishments for anyone who broke the rules of isolation, and victims out of their homes could be hanged, and a healthy person who left a locked up house would be whipped. • LOCAL RESPONSES • The first reaction of most town corporations to an outbreak of plague was to pretend it wasn't happening. By the 17th century the policy of isolating the sick and providing them with food and drink was implemented by most towns. More and more towns built pesthouses. Strangers were only allowed in with a certificate of health. Streets were cleaned. Stray cats and dogs were killed. Searchers were hired. • THE PEOPLE’S REACTIONS: • Turning to God: • Church attendance increased in times of plague. Prayer, fasting and good behaviour were the responses. • Running away: • Fear was a natural reaction as no one understood how it was spread, but everyone knew it was infectious and could kill. Many people therefore tried to leave infected towns. However this was purely an option of the wealthy, who may have had homes or friends in the country. The poor had no option but to remain. • Seeking a cure: • From the later 16th century, physicians and apothecaries were becoming more common. Those who stayed took the precaution of wearing heavy cloaks, hoods and leather beaks stuffed with herbs. • People may have bought tobacco to protect from miasma, or herbal remedies to ease the pain. But nothing could cure the plague. • Avoiding the sick: • Relationships between humans became strained during the plague. People avoided the sick, and people were reluctant to take food to plague victims, enter a house to write the will of a dying victim, or attend the funeral of a neighbour. Maids and servants could be thrown out to die in the streets. Foreigners and beggars were attacked, as were the Jews. • Sticking together: • Communities generally did not collapse as a result of plague. Parents looked after children. Husband and wife stayed together. The elderly took in orphaned children. Some people carried food and ale to neighbours, and many who died had a dignified burial with friends and family present. Key Terms: Aldermen – A leader of the parish/town council Watchmen – Stop movement of infected people across a town Viewers/Searchers – Bury the dead and collect money from each parish Pesthouse – Way of quarantining victims Certificate of health – Proof of health to prevent spread The Plague Act of 1604 – Extended help for sick families

17. Britain 1500-1750 improvements: Was it more of the same in early modern England? PUBLIC HEALTH Filth and fines: the impact of local government on public health: 1500-1670  York was the third biggest and wealthiest city in England, after Norwich and London. Here are the rules you would find along the ‘shambles’ in the period: • Room for improvement: the impact of public health • 1670-1750: • After 1670, town no longer had to worry about outbreaks of plague - instead they concentrated on improving the urban environment. • 1752, new churches such as St Paul’s Cathedral, a reservoir built in 1609. By 1750 several water companies in London supplied water directly into the homes of the wealthy. • 1670-1750 local authorities made big changes too the centres of towns in order to cope with the growing number of people, carriages and carts. • Many councils encouraged the building of squares of large terraced houses where the wealthy could live. Many more streets were paved with stone, and lines of posts marked off paths for people. Oil-burning lamps first appeared in London in the 1680’s and by 1750 most towns had followed suit. • Town councils made these improvements to make life more pleasant, the people’s health was not their main concern, as the link between dirt and disease hadn't been made. • There was a big contrast between the improved areas and the poorer neighbourhoods, where streets were still unpaved and unlit, and where people still collected water from a public conduit. • Sewage disposal had hardly improved. GIN CRAZE · Ale and beer drinking had been widespread since the Middle Ages. In the early modern period there was a large increase in the number of alehouses, and drunkenness was a problem, and a strict group of Christians called puritans wrote pamphlets against the ‘demon drink’. · From around 1550, town councils and county justices tried to control alehouses by making it illegal to sell alcohol without a licence. By 1630 the measures were beginning to have an impact, but it would not last. · After 1660 alcohol became a huge problem for health because the poor began to drink spirits rather than ale or beer. It became even more of a problem in London, where ‘dram shops’ opened selling cheap brandy and gin. · At first gin was imported from Holland, where it was first produced in the 1650’s and in 1689 parliament banned imports to encourage English distillers. As a result gin became cheap and there was a huge increase in gin drinking amongst the poor. Thousands of ‘gin shops’ opened in cellars, back rooms, attics and sheds, and some people even sold it from wheel barrows. · In the 1720’s gin had become a big social and health problem in London. Hundreds of thousands of poor men and women turned to drink to escape the misery of their lives, and shops advertised ‘drunk for a penny, dead drunk for two’. There was an increase in crime and death. · In 1729 government finally did something to target the drink. Gin distillers had to pay a tax of 5 shillings on each gallon of gin, and sellers had to buy licenses for £20. It had little effect, and was hard to enforce. · In 1736 they made the law harsher, and licenses went up to £50, and tax rose to 20 shillings. Again it was hard to enforce. · In 1743 they tried again, and restricted the sale of gin to alehouses. By 1750 Londoners were consuming over 11 million gallons of gin. · In 1751 the government finally introduced a law which had an effect. Anyone caught selling gin illegally was imprisoned and whipped for a second offence. A third offence could see you sent to Australia.

18. Britain 1750-1900:Why were there huge changes in the people’s health? Overview: Features of life at this time: • Industrialisation: • By the early 19th century steam engines could power machines. • The demand for coal increased. • Hundreds of chimneys belched out smoke creating smog over the streets. • DIRTY TOWNS: THE PUBLIC HEALTH CRISIS IN EARLY INDUSTRIAL BRITAIN • The early industrial towns of the North and Midlands were grim places. • Workers often lived in cramped, dirty houses close to the factories where they worked. Few had running water and hardly any were connected to sewers. Several families might share a single privy. • · Waste overflowed onto the streets and yards, and killer diseases such as tuberculosis, typhoid and diphtheria were common. • 5 MAIN REASONS FOR THESE TERRIBLE LIVING CONDITIONS: • 1. Towns and cities grew incredibly quickly: The existing infrastructure of towns could not cope. • 2. The supply of houses could not keep up with demand: Landlords could make big profit from renting homes to workers. They built houses quickly and cheaply. • 3. Town government was weak: Many property-owners who governed the towns didn't want a rise in taxes to provide clean water and sewers for the poor. • 4. There were no laws to ensure decent housing to protect people’s health: National and local government has a laissez-faire attitude (if its not broken don’t fix it). • 5. People did not yet know that germs cause disease: It was not until after 1850 that people began to make a direct connection between dirty water and disease. Pasteur did not publish his germ theory until 1861, and it only became accepted in the latter half of the 19th century. New discoveries: In 1861 Louis Pasteur made one of the most important discoveries– that harmful germs could enter the human body, grow fast and cause disease. This allowed other scientists to use Pasteur's work to identify the specific diseases which caused disease. • Changing beliefs: • In 1859, Charles Darwin, published a book on evolution, The Origin of the Species. • By 1900 Britain had become a more secular society, and science was disproving Christianity. Growing literacy: In 1870 an Education Act provided schools for all children under the age of 10. Improvements in education meant more people could read, and this increased the demand for newspapers. Class divisions: Working class people crowded into slums of the city-centres to be close to the factories where they worked. Most of the middle class never ventured into these areas and so they were ignorant to the conditions of the poor. Alcohol: People in industrial Britain drank too much. The middle class enjoyed a bottle of wine with their dinner, and wealthier men drank brandy and port. Working class people also consumed too much alcohol, but drinking took place in a pub rather than at home, as they were nicer than slums. People became addicted to alcohol and drank huge quantities of beer and whisky. A ‘Temperance Movement’ was formed to help with drink, it had limited success. • Urbanisation and the railways: • Overcrowding and getting water were massive problems in this period. • Railways brought fresh food to the towns, and allowed people to escape to the countryside and the coast, but they also added to the pollution. Key Terms: Privy – Toilet Laissez – Faire – Government left alone public health

19. Britain 1750-1900:Why were there huge changes in the people’s health? • WATER • Working classes did not have water piped into their homes., instead water companies piped water to pumps on the streets. • Whole streets to shared one water pump. Landlords only payed a water companies for the most basic provisions. • Poor families were unable to afford water company charges, and in some places a water company may not have existed at all. In these situations water was obtained from the river, or they may have to walk to a spring or pond. • All water supplies were dirty - water pumped from polluted rivers, springs, ponds or streams. Richer families filtered water, but typhoid and other diseases were more rife, especially in summer. • No one was aware of the germs in the water. • HOUSING • People were often packed into small rooms in lodgings housing, sometimes sleeping on the floor or sharing a bed. Disease spread quickly. Typhus (passed on by lice) was common. • Many people lived in a back-to-back house. These were built to cram as many houses onto a small plot of land as possible. Poor ventilation led to tuberculosis. • Cellar dwellings - Those that could not afford a back-to-back cramped with others in the cellars of other peoples houses. Nineteenth Century living conditions • FOOD • Working-class families were forced to buy food from small shops and street vendors. The income of many was too low to buy sufficient food. • Poor families relied on bread, butter, potatoes and tea. Many people were malnourished making them prone to sickness and disease. • Not until the 1860s was food preserved in cans, and fridges were not invented until the 1880s. • The laissez-faire attitude of government meant they made little effort to control the production and sale of food. As a result food eaten by the poor was mainly adulterated: butchers sold diseased meat at cheap prices; cows milk was mixed with water and chalk. This all resulted in food poisoning and diarrhoea. • WASTE • The biggest issue of the first part of the nineteenth century was the disposal of human waste. • Sewers drained the streets of water but weren't designed to carry away human excrement. As a result, pools of stinking water often filled the streets. • People continued to use privies, you may have had ten houses using one toilet. • Some were connected to cesspools– When they were full they would be emptied by ‘night soil men’. Cesspools would often over flow into the yards and courts. • If a leaking cesspool or midden was close to a well or a pump it could be fatal. People believed miasma from the cesspools was deadly, they didn't understand the danger of the germs. • The system of privies and night soil men was put under huge strain after industrialisation. This reached a peak in t he early 1800s when more middle and upper class people were using flushing toilets, between 1800 and 1830 they linked to the sewers, and in many towns these emptied directly into the rivers, where water companies obtained water. People were paying for watered down excrement to drink, wash in and cook with. Cesspool Key Terms: Back-to-back housing – Housing with no garden Cellar Dwelling – Occupants lived in cellar of a house Adulterated food – Food with added ingredients to sell cheap. Cesspools – Holes in the ground filled with waste Midden – Dung heap

20. Britain 1750-1900 Epidemics : Why were there huge changes in the people’s health? DISEASE AND DEATH: RESPONSES TO CHOLERA Many diseases that were rife in the industrial period had been present in the Middle Ages. The overcrowding lead to them becoming even bigger killers. 5 common diseases in early industrial Britain: The 5 diseases along with other killers like bronchitis, pneumonia, smallpox, whooping cough, measles and scarlet fever, had a terrible impact on life expectancy. In 1841 average life expectancy at birth was 26.6 in Manchester, 28.1 in Liverpool, and 27 in Glasgow. This was all made worse when Cholera arrived in October 1831. BELIEFS AND RESPONSES: We know now what caused cholera, the germ entering people who drank dirty water. It was not until the 1850’s that this was identified. In 1832 people had different ideas. Many people still believed in God and so unexplained events were blamed on God. Some Doctors believed it was contagious, and that it was transmitted by touch. The most common belief was the miasma theory.