Edwin Chadwick, the British public health movement and the Spanish hygienism

Abstract

The British sanitary movement, led by Edwin Chadwick was, based on the approach of its Sanitary Report (1842), the most important and influential public health movement of the first half of the nineteenth century. At a time when the problems associated with deteriorating living conditions in industrial cities were becoming more pressing, its main objective was the achievement of social stability and the moralization of the working classes, together with the achievement of significant economic advantages. Meanwhile, in these same middle years of the nineteenth century, hygiene was consolidated in Spain as a modern scientific discipline thanks to Mateo Seoane, Pedro Felipe Monlau and Francisco Méndez Álvaro. This paper analyzes the connections, similarities and differences between Spanish hygienism and the British sanitary movement.