Medical Officers of Health

• However much legislation the government introduced, ultimately the health of the nation depended on the work at a local level. Most town councillors were elected on the promise of keeping rates low, but there was tension between keeping rates low and spending money on sanitary measures. They were, therefore, difficult to persuade into spending money on public health.
• It was the appointment of Dr William Henry Duncan as Liverpool's medical officer of health in 1847 that provided the ideal model for other towns and cities to follow. A physician at the Liverpool Infirmary, a lecturer at the medical school of Royal Institution and in regular correspondence with Edwin Chadwick, he was a man of considerable standing in the medical profession.
• However, some local authorities were slow at implementing:

  • Leeds didn't appoint a medical officer of health until 1866, Manchester 1868.
  • Wolverhampton didn't have a full-time medical officer of health until 1921.
  • At the time of the Public Health Act 1875, which made the appointment of a medical officer of health obligatory, there were approximately 50 medical officers of health holding full-time roles.
• The Local Government Act 1888 laid down that all medical officers of health in districts with a population of over 50000 had to be qualified doctors.