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Overcrowding
Health and Overcrowding
By the beginning of the 20th century, in the overcrowded tenement areas, diseases of poverty and proximity were rife. Polio, diphtheria and rickets, a malformation of bones due to a lack of vitamin D, were prevalent. Glasgow had infant mortality rates double the UK average.
Research established a relationship between housing conditions and the welfare of growing children.
City living
As Glasgow rapidly grew the heath and the housing of Glasgow citizens went hand in hand. Like other rapidly growing cities all over the world people flooding into poor quality housing resulted in a concentration of slum areas.
By the mid 19th Century overcrowded Glasgow was effected by epidemics of Cholera which prompted early reform of the cities water supply and the movement , of those rich enough, west from the city’s old heart.
By the time of the Boer War, 1899-1902, Glasgow was the second city of the biggest empire the world had ever seen. When the Empire needed recruits to fot its wart, child physical development had been so badly effected by the poverty that most working people lived in that a large proportion of the young men from industrial cities were found unfit for the Army.