ABSTRACT
Panic was a large factor in securing repentance and good works when cholera threatened; as it, likewise, was in an earlier century when plague became epidemic. In both instances the desire for complete and accurate information as to the extent of the invasion led in England to the call for accurate vital statistics. The economic motive as well as the motive of panic was concerned in the promotion of accurate and complete vital statistics; and as leader in the English campaign for economising on sickness, Edwin Chadwick must be given the first place. In 1839 the Poor Law Commissioners wrote a letter to the then Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, which shews their appreciation of the relation of insanitation and sickness to pauperism. This chapter also indicates the way in which in England the science of preventive medicine and public health originated in large measure in the work of the Poor Law organization.
