Skip Navigation



Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on July 10, 2007
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkm041
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/2/281    most recent
hkm041v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Richardson, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved

The Uppingham Typhoid Outbreaks of 1875–1877: A Rural Case-Study in Public Health Reform

Nigel Richardson*

* The Perse School, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8QF, UK. E-mail: NPVRichardson{at}ntlworld.com


  Abstract

Summary Uppingham, a small market town in the East Midlands, suffered repeated typhoid outbreaks in 1875–6, centred on its famous boarding school. A fierce battle developed between the school doctor and the local medical officer of health (MoH), with the Local Government Board (LGB) struggling to satisfy the various parties, many of which had a vested interest in controlling rate increases. Faced with ruin if nothing were done, the headmaster, Edward Thring, removed the school to the Welsh coast for an entire year. The town's shopkeepers, heavily dependent on the school, forced the Rural Sanitary Authority (RSA) to implement better drainage, while Thring and others set up a private company to supply water to the town. Writers such as Hamlin, Hennock and Wohl have already pointed to the formidable obstacles to public health reform facing authorities in urban areas. Uppingham's experience, unusually well documented for a small community, suggests that in rural areas these difficulties were equally great, and that local leaders were hopelessly ill-equipped for the task they faced.

Keywords: typhoid; local government; Rural Sanitary Authority; guardians; Local Government Board; Public Health Acts; Medical Officer of Health; rates; ratepayers


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.