Health and Sanitation in Victorian London
Diet, Health, and Sanitation in Victorian England are so interrelated that it is difficult to examine one without being led to another. A.S. Wohl sums it up when he states: "It is rather commonplace of modern medical opinion that nutrition plays a crucial role in the body's ability to resist disease and the experience of the World Health Organization indicates that where sanitary conditions are rudimentary and disease is endemic (that is, where nineteenth-century conditions prevail, so to speak) diet may be the crucial factor in infection" (Wohl 56). However, there was often a vicious cycle at work in these trying times and it is difficult to point to the root causes of some of the contagion that infected people. Also there were various philosophies, some not as instructive as others, being practiced in the early part of the nineteenth century that tried to explain sanitation problems and poverty. When can see how pervasive this problem was as it made its way into much of the literature at the time. Its representation was rather grim. Works such as Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist and Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton represent the harsh reality of these conditions.
While much of the investigation into the sanitary conditions of the times focused on the working classes, disease and poor sanitation also found their way into the higher classes of society. However, there often remained the prevailing stigma that a dirty body and poor sanitation was the result of some sort of moral failing. Graham Benton puts his finger on this view rather succinctly in his piece which recently appeared in the Dickens Quarterly: "'And Dying Thus Around Us Every Day': Pathology, Ontology and the Discourse of the Diseased Body. A Study of Illness and Contagion In Bleak House." Benton suggests that: "although contagious disease refuses to recognize boundaries of class, it has become aligned with the disenfranchised and disavowed segments of society, and, more significantly, disease became emblematic of other unrelated but equally horrific social ills" (69). Whatever the motivations to end the plight of contagion and unsanitary conditions might have been at the time; it is fair to say that when the spread of disease crossed the invisible boundaries of class that people were spurred into action, albeit not as quickly as they should have.
While poor drainage and waste disposal procedures can be seen as a direct result of fever and epidemic; it is important first to look at the dietary practices of the working classes which would greatly contribute to their squalid living conditions.
This article contains Huxley's views on many controversial subjects and their relationship todirt. But the most prominent comparison was between the social classesand the level of hygiene associated with each one. Mr. Huxley goes on toillustrate this difference with a variety of metaphors. He talks abouthow this view changed throughout history, and how great people tried toinfluence social changewith implementation of their plans for widespreadequality in cleanliness.
One measure they had was that of the “red cross”. This is where they would paint a red cross on the doors of people who were diagnosed with the plague. I think this would have worked because it would let people know who had the plague, so that they could avoid falling ill themselves.
“ The floor was half an inch deep with blood, in site of the best efforts of men who kept shoveling ot through holes; it must have made the floor slippery…” (Sinclair, 1906, l. 653). Sanitation was really lacking because you never know
“80 percent of teen-agers have tried alcohol, and that alcohol was a contributing factor in the top three causes of death among teens: accidents, homicide and suicide” (Underage, CNN.com pg 3). Students may use drinking as a form of socializing, but is it really as good as it seems? The tradition of drinking has developed into a kind of “culture” fixed in every level of the college student environment. Customs handed down through generations of college drinkers reinforce students' expectation that alcohol is a necessary ingredient for social success. These perceptions of drinking are the going to ruin the lives of the students because it will lead to the development alcoholism. College students who drink a lot, while in a college environment, will damage themselves mentally, physically, and socially later in life, because alcohol adversely affects the brain, the liver, and the drinkers behavior.
German scientist and satirist, Georg C. Lichtenberg, once said, “Sickness is mankind's greatest defect.” Sickness affects everyone, no matter where one is from or how one lives. Even in today’s world with modern medicine, sickness runs rampant. If one were to think back to when the only cures society had were rituals, a prime example of sickness in a society is England. Recalling the plagues in England, one can easily see the two prominent plagues that struck, along with how they affected English economy and culture.
College student drunkenness is far from new and neither are college and university efforts to control it. What is new, however, is the potential to make real progress on this age-old problem based on scientific research results. New research-based information about the consequences of high-risk college drinking and how to reduce it can empower colleges and universities, communities, and other interested organizations to take effective action. Hazardous drinking among college students is a widespread problem that occurs on campuses of all sizes and geographic locations. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Harvard University School of Public Health reported that 44 percent of respondents had drunk more than five drinks (four for women) consecutively in the previous two weeks. About 23 percent had had three or more such episodes during that time. The causes of this problem are the fact that students are living by themselves no longer with parents or guardians; they earn their own money; students need to be a part of a group, be accepted; and they have the wrong idea that to feel drunk is “cool.”
We've all heard it before: "Too much of anything is bad for us." The amount of binge drinking occurring on American college campuses today proves that college students do not heed this warning. Binge drinking, or drinking for the purpose of getting drunk, harms both drinkers and non-drinkers alike. As today's college students come dangerously close to being swept away in the sea of papers, exams, jobs, and interviews, they use bingeing as the lifeboat that allows them to escape the stress. It allows them to forget their worries, fit in with the crowd, and live on the edge in a fast-paced world that normally does not leave time for such activities. Teetering on the brink of adulthood, yet still trapped in childhood makes drinking decisions difficult for many college students. A desire to get away from our usual lives because of societal regulations and conformity, psychological and emotional problems, and the stress of everyday life causes college binge drinking.
Sanitary conditions in the West were practically non-existent. In the cities, horse manure covered the streets. Housewives emptied garbage, dishwater, and chamber pots into the middle of the city streets where free-roaming pigs devoured the waste. The pigs left their urine and feces on the streets. It was not easy to wash clothes. Many people had clothes splattered with manure, mud, sweat, and tobacco juice. Privies, or necessary houses were often to close to the homes with a very noticeable odor on hot and/or windy days. If a family had a kitchen, all the members washed at the sink each day, without soap, rubbing the dirt off with a coarse towel. Eventually, many cold bedrooms had a basin, ewer (pitcher), cup, and cupboard chamber pot. Bed bugs and fleas covered many of the travelers’ beds. “Isaac Weld saw filthy beds swarming with bugs.” These insects followed the travelers, crawling on their clothes and skin.
As the high school chapter is coming to a close, many students have to make a decision that will affect the rest of their lives. Hopefully, for many that decision is to enroll in a college and attain a higher education. However, as tuition costs rise, students have to take a second look at their options for a better future. A community college is that second look for many because it is the less expensive option. From 2007-2009, enrollment for community colleges has increased by 24 percent (“College costs and the CPI”). Students aren’t choosing a college for educational purposes because they are overwhelmed by financial issues. They are attending community colleges so they will be able to graduate with a lower debt. Some seniors have wanted to attend a certain university all their life and they work toward that goal through grade school; however, they are hindered by soaring tuition for that college. Students should be able to attend a private university if they mee...
According to a national survey conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, “almost 60 percent of college students ages 18–22 drank alcohol in the past month, 1 and almost 2 out of 3 of them engaged in binge drinking during that same timeframe” (NIH). Binge drinking culture refers to the recent rise and normalization of college age students drinking excessively. The CDC describes binge drinking as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol level to 0.08grams within two hours” (CDC). For many young adults, college is one of the first times they will experience complete freedom. This freedom often leads to partying, which goes hand in hand with the consumption of alcohol. However, since the age at which
Distad, Merrill N. “Food and Diet.” Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1988. 304-307.
...urt, Houghton, Larry S. Krieger, and Linda Black). Typhus, typhoid fever, and cholera were the three main diseases that ended thousands of lives. The major cause for these diseases was the method of ridding waste.
Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 Poor Law in Oliver Twist Dickens criticised the 1834 poor law in many different ways within the first five chapters. He does this firstly by cleverly portraying the Victorians attitudes towards the poor. He does this in chapter 1 by referring to Oliver as 'the item of mortality' suggesting how lowly his position in society is. Also the difficulty of Oliver's birth and the fact his mother dies, gives us some idea of the dangers of child birth in Victorian society and the amount of negligence his mother receives from the surgeon.
During the time that Charles Dickens lived, which was during the Victorian Age (1837-1901), “...1837 ( the year Victoria became Queen) and ends in 1901 in ( the year of her death),” (UNLV 1). It is important to realize that the Victoria’s reign over Britain is the second longest reign in British history, lasting for 63 years, only behind that of the current Queen Elizabeth. Many historians consider 1900 the end of the Victorian Age, “...since Queen Victoria’s death occurred so soon in the beginning of a new century,..” (UNLV 1). Even though Charles Dickens was born in 1812 and died in 1870, the Victorian Age is time period which most, maybe all, of his literature were published/read in. This era is often considered as “prudish, hypocritical, stuffy, and narrow-minded” (UNLV 2), because during this time, there were classes animosities between the “common man” and that of what was considered the “gentleman”, which was like as if they were two different species (Orwell 3.5). The advancement in literature during this period also was important, “...primarily financial, as in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations…marrying above one’s station, as in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre...[it] may also be intellectual or education-based,” (UNLV 4). Without the literature advancements, the Victorian Age wouldn’t have made such an impact on the world as it did literary-wise.
These tenements lacked in many ways, including space and sanitation. Due to the packed conditions, diseases spread rapidly. Overall, the housing of the working class was unpleasant and many fell ill to diseases because the risk of developing a disease in a cramped environment was higher. In Document 2, it is evident that the tenements were not an ideal living space. Document 6 portrays that factories were ideally designed for the machines and not for the workers, and as a result the working conditions were also harsh.