This 1898 biography of doctor and public health reformer Southwood Smith is revealing about social conditions in nineteenth-century England.Thomas Southwood Smith (17881861) was a minister, physician and social reformer, who considerably improved the health of the poor by linking sanitation with epidemics. His views on better living conditions and quarantine reduced deaths from cholera. This 1898 biography was written by his granddaughter Gertrude, sister of Octavia Hill.Thomas Southwood Smith (17881861) was a minister, physician and social reformer, who considerably improved the health of the poor by linking sanitation with epidemics. His views on better living conditions and quarantine reduced deaths from cholera. This 1898 biography was written by his granddaughter Gertrude, sister of Octavia Hill.Thomas Southwood Smith (17881861) was a minister, physician and social reformer, who considerably improved the health of the poor by linking sanitation with epidemics. A utilitarian, and friend of Jeremy Bentham, his arguments in The Use of the Dead to the Living (1827) helped lead to the Anatomy Act of 1832 which allowed corpses from workhouses to be sold to medical schools, and so ended the market for grave-robbers while improving medical education. Although the fame of his granddaughter, Octavia Hill, has eclipsed his own reputation, Southwood Smith was an important figure in his day, whose work initiated many public health reforms. He served on the royal commission on children's employment, and was medical representative on the General Board of Health to deal with the cholera epidemic of 1848. This biography, written by his granddaughter Gertrude, who was G. H. Lewes' daughter-in-law, was published in 1898.Preface; Introduction: recollections of my grandfather; 1. Early life, 17881820; 2. First years in London. Dawn of the science of modern hygiene, 182034; 3. London continued. Literary and other work, 182034; 4. Work on the Factory Commission, 1833; 5. Rise olĂ1