Changing Attitudes.

One infectious disease after another was occurring around the town diseases like smallpox and cholera were returning month after month. The nineteen fifties saw a change in attitude in medical care. Florence Nightingale had opened a nursing school at St Thomas's Hospital, staff at the time were low paid and had little or no training. Material published around the same time focuses on the care of the poor, including the relationship between sanitary conditions and diseases. Concern for poor children's health also appears heavily in the media around this time. Florence Nightingale called out for an improvement of nursing services in hospitals and on the method of training nurses for the sick poor. The image of nurses began to change and the role of hospitals began to widen.

Although attitudes toward health care and sanitation conditions began to change it would be more towards the end of the century before any real improvement would be seen. The board of guardians took steps to remove people from their homes under the Nuisances Removal and Sanitary Act. 1860, this was to help prevent the spread of these diseases. This would only occur if there was more than one case and the disease still appeared to be spreading. Infectious diseases affected rich and poor alike Prince Albert died from typhoid in 1864.

Under the Vaccination Act of 1867, the Rotherham Union could now complete an inspection of public vaccinations. Something was needed to stop the spread of the diseases. Amongst the poor and working classes in general the workhouse remained a matter of shame. People would only go in if they were absolutely desperate even if they were ill. Although conditions in the town were slowly improving the health of the town still gave great concern. Many families still lived below the poverty borderline in overcrowded slum dwellings. For many working class people the main diet was bread and dripping and tea or pea soup in the cold weather. Many diseases were apparent like rickets and tuberculosis.

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