The poor physique of men in Manchester caused a national scandal when three out of every five volunteers for the Boer War were deemed unfit.
Dr. John Ferriar, a physician at Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1795 helped to set up a Board of Health which rented 4 houses in Portland Street belonging to the Lunatic Asylum for use as a fever hospital.
[5] The best-known critique of the social conditions in Manchester was written by Friedrich Engels, whilst visiting the city between 1842 and 1844.
He worked at the family-owned mill, Ermen and Engels at Weaste, Salford, and spent his leisure time visiting poor working-class communities.
He directly related these stark health indicators to the appalling living and working conditions of workers which were driven by capitalist enterprise: "Women made unfit for childbearing, children deformed, men enfeebled, limbs crushed, whole generations wrecked, afflicted with disease and infirmity, purely to fill the purses of the bourgeoisie.
He is credited with reducing the death rate in Manchester from 24.26 per 1,000 people in 1893 to 13.82 per 1,000 in 1921 through an "intense zeal, perseverance, and courage of conviction" that drove sanitary reforms and waged war on infectious disease.