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MBChB Year 1

Module 1.01: Traveller's Health

Current Assessment

Lecture Title: Rise and Fall of Epidemic Diseases

Lecture Synopsis Sheet: Summary / Abstract

This lecture traces the development of public health, particularly in Britain, beginning with the 19th century cholera epidemics. It discusses how ideas on disease transmission changed (from Miasmatic to Germ theory) and how this stimulated the creation of the discipline of public health, particularly the work of William Henry Duncan in Liverpool and John Snow and the origins of epidemiology in London. Advances in bacteriology in the late 19th century led to a re-focusing of public health targets, away from the environment and towards the individual. This fitted in with national concerns about degeneration and stimulated the creation of early welfare state measures.
The lecture discusses how public health had moved between local and national government control, and the impact of the introduction of the NHS in 1948, particularly on the profession of public health. In the post-war period it considers the new emphasis on health inequalities, and the renewal of multi-disciplinary public health.