Health reform: 1849

The College of Physicians having sent forth some gratuitous advice, which is well worth its cost, on the subject of Cholera, we hasten to put it into plain language for the benefit of the community.

Every one is to live extremely well, and no one is, on any account, to neglect warm clothing, with good coal fire, or any other arrangement that may be conducive to health and comfort.

All persons crowded together in small ill-ventilated houses are recommended to take at once more commodious apartments, and those individuals who are insufficiently clothed must give orders forthwith to their tailors for taking the necessary measures.

Families not hitherto in the habit of keeping up a good fire in the winter, through their inability to purchase the fuel, will without delay take the necessary steps for laying in a stock of coals from their respective coal merchants; and those who have had meat only once a week, will give orders for a daily supply in future, to their various butchers. It being highly expedient not to overtax the strength, those who feel exhausted by their labour will relinquish their work when they feel themselves too much debilitated to continue with comfort to themselves, and they will of course take care to make up in some way for the deficiency of their wages. These simple suggestions have only to be followed out with due care by the labouring classes of the community, in order to mitigate very materially the severity of the Cholera.

--From Punch, or The London Charivari--

That's almost as silly as requiring people who can't afford health insurance to either buy it or pay a fine.