It was from the London Fever Hospital that the move away from the individualistic eighteenth-century approach to infectious disease was made, in the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Deficiency diseases, both glandular and dietary, were but dimly understood in those days. People were dying of diseases, such as cholera, typhus, smallpox and tuberculosis. We are living longer than we did 100 years ago because of advances in medical science as well as better sanitation, nutrition and hygiene. Common Diseases occurred and took over during the 19th century in America. Before doctors possessed sophisticated diagnostic techniques they tended to write symptoms rather … Proper diagnosis and effective treatment of goitre, diabetes, and the various vitamin deficiencies belong to the twentieth century, as is true with allergies, many of which must also have imitated the early symptoms of acute diseases. See our separate guide for advice on records created by these institutions and other records of public health and social policy in the 20th century . Physicians were often baffled and did not have a clear understanding of microorganisms or how diseases were transmitted. image caption The mid 19th Century was a time of political and social protest In Leicester the number of prosecutions for non-vaccination grew from … In 2016, nearly 20,000 cases were reported in the United Kingdom -- the biggest increase in 50 years. Common ailments, complaints, and diseases were a mystery in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. In 1824, Thomas Southwood Smith (1788-1861) and Alexander Tweedie (1794 … Cases of malnutrition and other “Victorian” diseases are soaring in England, in what campaigners said was a result of cuts to social services and rising food poverty. An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. disease epidemics that afflicted other countries in the 19th century The Ministry of Health was established in 1919 and the National Health Service in 1948. This is a list of the largest known epidemics and pandemics caused by an infectious disease.Widespread non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer are not included. Schools were dependent on Attendance numbers for their funding in the late 19th century so often did not close when there was an outbreak of infectious disease. “It was estimated that as many as 1 person in 10 died of smallpox. Things were improving by the 19th century. More than half the working class died before their fifth birthday”. In the 19th century, scarlet fever was a common killer in Europe. Medicine in the 19th century.