International Journal of Epidemiology 2003;32:496-498
© International Epidemiological Association 2003
Reprints and Reflections |
‘Malnutrition in England’ University College Hospital Magazine 1934 Some reflections in 2003 on the 1930s
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The ‘hunger march’ of unemployed men from Jarrow to London in 1936 is the best known of the marches which took place in the early 1930s to protest against the high rates of unemployment and the low rates of benefit. It was another of these marches on which I, and a small group of third year medical students from University College London, met on the outskirts of London in 1933.
Our intention was to show support for the march and to provide any first aid that might be necessary. This turned out to be mainly the dressing of blisters.
It was this experience, combined with the publication by the British Medical Association in 1933 of its report on minimum diets considered adequate for those on unemployment benefit that stimulated me to write the article on malnutrition in England.1
Sir Richard Doll described a similar experience when interviewed by Sue Lawley