A Chronology of State Medicine, Public Health, Welfare and Related ...

libraries and stated that access to the libraries and museums should be free of all charge.
Extended to Scotland and Ireland in 1853 (16&17 Vict., c.101).
Epidemiological Society founded in London by a group of physicians, under the
presidency of the Earl of Shaftesbury (see 1844), to "institute a rigid examination into the
causes and conditions which influence the origin, propagation, mitigation and prevention of
epidemic disease, and to give advice to authorities on the best means of prevention". The first
president was BG Babington (1794-1866, physician at Guy's Hospital, FRS, and later
president of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society). Vice-presidents included John Simon
(see 1848), Thomas Southwood Smith (see 1830), Thomas Addison (1793-1860, physician at
Guy's Hospital) and Richard Bright (1789-1858, physician at Guy's Hospital). See 1907.
Committee on the Nomenclature of Diseases set up at the Royal College of Physicians
of London. The first report was published in 1869. See 1853.
1850 Cont - 1852
1850 cont University of London given authority to approve institutions throughout the
British Empire as suitable to enter candidates for London external degrees.
1851 Census (30 March) carried out under Farr's (1839) supervision and collected more
details than former censuses. The details included age, sex, occupation, birthplace,
relationship to head of household, marital state, education, and the number of persons who
were deaf and dumb or blind. The handicap questions continued to be asked up to and
including 1911. A question about religious worship was included, the only time that this has
been asked in a census. The data about education were published in a special report in 1854.
The population in England and Wales was given as 17.9 million, thirty five per cent aged
under 15 years and four per cent aged 65 or more. For the first time more people were
recorded as living in towns than in rural areas. During the 1850s one death in every three was
attributed to an infectious disease, among which tuberculosis dominated.
Common Lodging Houses Act (14&15 Vict., c.28) introduced registration of the
keepers of common lodging houses and empowered local authorities to inspect and make
regulations concerning the lodging houses. See 1853.
The Labouring Classes Lodging Houses Act (14&15 Vict., c.34) authorised local
authorities to establish lodging houses for the labouring classes. See 1853.
Window tax repealed (14&15 Vict., c.36).
The first International Sanitary Conference met in Paris to discuss the quarantine of
ships in respect of plague, yellow fever and cholera, but failed to produce a convention. See
1892.
The General Board of Health issued a statement of the duties of "officers of health".
These included "giving instructions and directions for the removal or prevention of causes of
disease common to several persons, and also for the prevention or removal of causes of
disease to individuals, where those causes come within the province of local administration
under the Public Health Act". The officers were required to report quarterly to the General
Board of Health on the nature and amount of sickness and death which had prevailed in their
areas during the quarter, and annually to provide more details about the nature, location and
rates of sickness and death, and possible future action for preventing identified causes. See
1855.
Analytical Sanitary Commission established by The Lancet to investigate the
adulteration of food and drink. Reports were published in The Lancet during the next four
years.
Mount Street medical school, Manchester, became the medical department of Owen's