CHAPTER XVIII

THE SOCIAL WORK OF LOCAL
AUTHORITIES

Health

General Health Measures

Treatment of Illness

Maternity and Child Welfare
Education

Elementary Education

Higher Education
Housing
Planning
Public Assistance

HEALTH.

The public has learnt from experience the need for health
services. The prevalence of Plague, and lesser diseases, in the
Middle Ages is well known; the precautions taken to prevent
their spread were sketchy, and although records show that
municipalities fought constantly against the dirtying of streets,
the connection between disease and dirt, and the dangers of
infection, were not fully understood. As late as the end of the
i8th century, hackney coaches plying for public hire, would
take 'a sufferer to a fever hospital and return straightway to
their regular work. It was, however, just at this period that
considerable advances in, medical knowledge occurred, of which,
unfortunately, too little use was made when the factory towns,
of the Industrial Revolution were being built Doctors protested
in vain against the erection of ill-ventilated houses, subject to
flooding, and unprovided with any sanitary arrangements, while
the factories polluted the water supply with their refuse. Outbreaks
of cholera showed the danger in which the country stood, and"

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