Modern medicine

• Free school meals - 1906
• School medical inspections - 1907
• Old age pensions act - 1909
• Labour exchange (job centres) - 1909
• National insurance Act - 1911

• Published a 'Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population of Great Britain'
• His idea was that improved public health and healthy workforce would save money rather than cost
• The report and statistics describing levels of sickness and mortality shocked privileged classes
• People  campaigned for improvements and in 1844, the Health of Towns Association was set up
• Government passed a public health bill becoming the first Public Health Act in 1848 following the cholera epidemic

Florence Nightingale; 

• Came from a rich family who disapproved of Florence's choice
• Hospitals were dirty and unsanitary
• Was asked to go to the Crimea to organise nursing
• She insisted on cleanliness which reduced death rate
• The public was so impressed that £50,000 was raised to pay for a School for nurses
• She understood that fresh air, clean water and sunlight was essential for good health

Elizabeth Blackwell; 

• First woman in modern times to qualify as doctor
• Was an American teacher
• Taught herself baud science because it wasn't taught to girls
• Medical schools refused her but a small college in New York accepted her
• At up a successful clinic in that City for women and children

Sophia Jex-Blake; 

• Gained entry to Edinburgh university but refused a degree
• Co-founded London School of Medicine
• Gained own qualification from University of Bern

Elizabeth Garret; 

• Had good education
• Qualified in Paris where they would accept her as a doctor

• Published his famous Beveridge Report, calling for the state provision of social security "from the cradle to the grave"
• Was a bestseller, he argued that people should have the right to be free from want, disease, ignorance etc
• After hearing about this Nye Bevan (the Labour Minister for Health) introduced the NHS

• Medical imaging using sound waves (ultrasound) allows doctors to build a picture of What's going on inside the body
• MRI scanner uses radio waves and magnets to visualise internal structures of body
• Fibre-optic cables inside an endoscope allows doctors to look inside body, for instance during keyhole surgery