BMJ 1998;317:592-596 ( 29 August )

Education and debate

Millennium report to Sir Edwin Chadwick

Editorials by Alderslade, Palmer Recent advances p   584 Education and debate pp   587 , 596

Iqbal Sram, locum consultant in public health,  John Ashton, regional director of public health. 

NHS Executive North West, Warrington WA3 7QN

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the 1848 Public Health Act, Iqbal Sram and John Ashton write a memo to Edwin Chadwick, the architect of the 1848 act, on the state of the public health at the end of the millennium

I will not cease from mental strife,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land

William Blake

Dear Sir Edwin,

We live in a world which you would have envied. You played a dominant role in laying the foundations of this world. A clean and secure water supply for the population at large, coupled with the separate disposal of their sewage and waste, were the central planks of your crusade to protect public health in your day. However, Sir Edwin, we enter a caution here. The harmonious world referred to is, in essence, the "first world." The insanitary conditions which you were determined to eradicate still persist over large parts of the globe.

It will not have escaped your notice that it is 150 years since the enactment of . . . [Full text of this article]

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This article has been cited by other articles:

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