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Article: Weekend - Victorian Health: Dickensian doctors clean up their act; As the tide of the Industrial Revolution swept across Britain, things were far from rosy. Cramped, dirty cities allowed diseases to ravage the population. But modern medicine and key hygiene advances were beginning to save lives, as Mel Hunter explains.
- Article from:
- The Birmingham Post (England)
- Article date:
- January 20, 2001
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Mel Hunter
'Dirt besmeared walls and decaying foundations; every repulsive lineament of poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot and garbage - all these ornament the banks of Folly Ditch,' wrote Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist.
Dickensian Britain was a bleak world where disease and deprivation were the rule rather than the exception.
But though industrialisation brought with it huge social problems, advances in health care in Victorian times were also inextricably linked to the huge changes sweeping through society.
The ...