20th century

• 19th c. public health:

  • Booth and Rowntree's reports helped to link poverty to disease
  • the Boer War made the government realise there were no healthy young men available to become soldiers
• The Liberal Reforms (1906-1914)

  • free school meals, medical inspections, pensions, national insurance, labour exchanges
• WW1 and WW2: presented new injuries, surgeons developed new techniques to cure these

  • x-rays discovered 20 years before the war, but were manufactured in WW1 to meet demand on the Western Front
  • blood groups discovered in 1901, and helped transfusions to become successful. A way of storing blood was also created for WW1
• Penicillin:

  • Fleming rediscovered penicillin in 1928, by chance, however couldn't develop his findings
  • Florey and Chain in 1939 were funded by the US to produce penicillin for WW2. By 1944, penicillin was mass produced, and proved to be extremely successful during the war.
• • Sir William Beveridge published the Beveridge report in 1942, about a new welfare state
  • this led to a new Labour government
  • Aneurin Bevan was Labour Minister for health, who introduced the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948