68 Morley: City chaos, contagion, Chadwick, and social justice the neediest in society from claiming help, should be recognized at this point as being a governmental scheme not against poor people, per se, but as an apparatus hostile to the activities and conducts of the poor, whom the Poor Law administrators consid- ered socially iniquitous. It was thought that by implementing a welfare structure that sought at its core to encourage the dimin- ishment of bad habits like evading work (because of idleness or ill health) and so the need to claim relief, society at large would be known to improve itself. In this manner, the management of poverty through the amended Poor Law combined social, moral, and economics judgments. Impoverishment and disease were viewed as the end result of immoral habits as much as in the pres- ence of miasma. Implemented at a time when numerous reports by medical practi- tioners were increasingly highlighting the union between poverty and infirmity [28], the Poor Law Commissioners deduced that as much as Poor Relief lessened suffering, it was not sufficient in itself to end penury. To this end, it was essential on economic grounds that measures were enforced to pre- vent ill health in order for laborers to achieve their work and salary potential in the free market. In other words, it was im- perative to root out the causes of disease so workers could better contribute to the na- tional industrial machine. Accordingly, as studies into the daily lives of the working class were necessary, interest in etiology was roused, and public health measures pur- sued. In 1838, Chadwick commissioned renowned medical practitioners James Kay and Neil Arnott (see Figure 7) to investigate the “physical causes of fever … which might be prevented by proper sanitary measures” in London. This was a response to an upsurge of illness but also was a skill- ful political maneuver to deflect critical at- tention that the Poor Law and destitution were primary causes of disease. Irrespective of reasons, the intention of the commission was weighty. Emphasis now was placed onto the roots of disease and issues of san- itation. Attention also was placed upon pre- ventive measures, something described in Figure 7. British public health pioneers. Top (from left): Edwin Chadwick and Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth. Bottom: Neil Arnott. 1840 by the Select Committee on the Health of Towns as being imperative for reasons of instigating justice for the poor and, rather meaningfully, sustaining the protection of property and security of the rich [29]. In short, the Poor Law Commission was chan- neling the focus of the formative public health movement in Britain, defining its concerns and delineating its interests. To appreciate further Edwin Chadwick’s unfolding approach to the subject of public health and the creation of a paradigm from 1842 to deal with poor urban health, it is not necessary to dwell so much on the limited scientific understanding of the early 1800s [29], but it is necessary to try to grasp the profundity of doctrinal, cultural, and social turmoil that economic growth had instigated prior. Of course, in as much as the narrow scientific base of the 1830s was crucial as to how disease was managed in Britain and did lead miasmatists, that is individuals who considered disease to be caused by “bad air,” like Chadwick, to undertake urban better- ment albeit for the wrong reasons, it is also vital to understand how the broader era in which these people lived and its influence upon how those interested in urban health af- fairs thought.