Public health and politics in the age of reform
Subtitle: cholera, the state and the Royal Navy in Victorian Britain
By: David McLean
Series: International library of historical studies -- 33
Publisher: I.B. Tauris; Distributed in the U.S. by Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2006
Place of publication: London; New York; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 239
Subjects: Cholera -- Great Britain -- History -- 19th century; Medical policy -- Great Britain
Description: "Cholera was the scourge of nineteenth century Britain, with four devastating epidemics sweeping the country from the 1830s to the 1860s. David McLean provides a detailed study of the efforts of local and national government efforts to combat the disease. Based on a unique cache of documents, McLean's account exposes the struggles between local and national government as they grappled with the enormity of the problem and the conflict between policies of laissez-faire and state intervention. Describing the efforts of public health reformer Edwin Chadwick in conjunction with among others, Prime Minister Lord Russell, Admiral Lord Cochrane and local Plymouth leader Joseph Beer, McLean brings to life a vital period in British social and political history with policy consequences that reverberate today."--Bloomsbury publishing.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [213]-230) and index