Victorian Diseases Strike Back (2024)

FAQs

What Victorian disease is coming back? ›

The word 'tuberculosis' typically conjures up Dickens-esque images of sickly Victorian children and melodramatic nineteenth-century poets. It was one of the most common and most deadly ailments of the time, but TB (aka the 'white plague') has stuck around since then. And right now it's on the rise in the UK.

In miasma theory, it was believed that diseases were caused by the presence in the air of a miasma, a poisonous vapour in which were suspended particles of decaying matter that was characterised by its foul smell.

Infectious diseases were the greatest cause of Victorian mortality. Most of these, such as smallpox, tuberculosis and influenza, were old scourges, but in 1831 Britain suffered its first epidemic of cholera.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that cases of TB, a bacterial infection, once again rose in the U.S. in 2023, reaching a toll not seen for a decade.

Babies in over-crowded and damp housing were the most at risk from diarrhoea and tuberculosis. Even those in rich families died because of poor medical knowledge. This mourning card shows that three children in the same family died between 1897 and 1899.

Working families would have had little money to spend on food and their poor diets meant that children didn't grow properly, were weak or developed rickets. It was usual for children to go to bed every night feeling hungry.

1832-1866: Cholera in three waves

The United States had three serious waves of cholera, an infection of the intestines, between 1832 and 1866. The pandemic began in India and swiftly spread across the globe through trade routes.

Diseases were rife and often fatal. The average life expectancy was about 40 years. A visit to the doctor was expensive and there was very little effective medicine available beyond alcohol, opium and blood-letting with leeches.

What did poor Victorians eat for lunch? ›

For the poorest a sandwich of bread and watercress was the most common. At the start of the week, porridge made with water might be possible. Lunch involved bread, combined with cheese if possible or more watercress. At the start of the week, soup could occasionally be bought as cheap street food.

Symptoms of tuberculosis include a chronic cough, fever, chills, loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, and coughing up blood.

The Victorian Disease Take Over

If the infectious disease onslaught is not enough, we're also struggling with malnutrition, with both rickets and scurvy increasingly rearing their ugly heads across the UK (over 28,000 cases of rickets and 269 cases of scurvy reported since 2019).

A newborn boy was expected to live to 40.2 in 1841, compared to 79.0 in 2011, whereas a baby girl was expected to live to 42.2 in 1841 and 82.8 in 2011. The low life expectancies of the 19th century can be explained by the higher number of infant deaths.

Consumption, known today as tuberculosis (TB), has been one of the biggest killers throughout history. Earliest references date back to the ancient Greeks. They named the disease of the lungs phthisis or consumption; owing to the rapid weight loss that appeared to consume the individual as the disease progressed.

There has been a surge in cases of scabies and measles – both highly contagious – as well as rickets and scurvy, conditions we thought had been eradicated.

Rickets, the childhood disease that once caused an epidemic of bowed legs and curved spines during the Victorian era, is making a shocking comeback in 21st-century Britain. Rickets results from a severe deficiency of vitamin D, which helps the body absorb calcium.

But are we facing a revival of Dickensian-era diseases? NHS data obtained from 84 NHS Trusts through freedom of information (FOI) requests shows a 'shocking' rise in Victorian maladies including rickets, scurvy, and malnutrition.

You might associate the word 'consumption' with ideas of expenditure or eating. In this context it is actually an old term for tuberculosis or TB, used from the 18th to the early 20th century. The name 'consumption' arose from the idea that the body was being consumed as the sufferer wasted away.