The Toronto Free Hospital for Consumptive Poor

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Stature in an early mid-19th century poorhouse population: Highland Park, Rochester, New York

If the early 19th century United States was a developing country, then it may be expected that the lowest economic stratum would show some biological consequences of poverty. This report examines that question by estimating stature on 90 male and 64 female adult skeletons from an unmarked cemetery dating between 1826 and 1863. The Highland Park burial ground was adjacent to institutions which interned unfortunates of Rochester, Monroe County, in western New York. The best estimate of male stature (N = 84) is 172.6 cm. A review of other 18th and 19th century height data shows this value not to be relatively stunted, but rather exactly on the predicted mean of its time. If this was a poor population, stunting was not a consequence of poverty. Females (N = 59) showed a best height estimate of 160.0 cm. Less comparative data are available, but this too seems average for the time. A brief discussion of secular trends, changing income inequity and fluctuating stature from the 18th through 20th centuries puts this finding in context.

The BMJ and poverty

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An ethnographic view: positive consequences of the War on Poverty

Life history data from Coast Salish tribes of Washington state reveal that federal War on Poverty programs produced important results that routine analysis has failed to uncover. The Comprehensive Training and Employment Act and the Indian Community Action Project provided income that enabled family networks to serve as centers of moral and financial support for members engaged in therapeutic work and provided training opportunities for a generation of leaders who are now instrumental in attracting funding for mental health programs.

The old homeless and the new homelessness in historical perspective

In the 1950s and 1960s homelessness declined to the point that researchers were predicting its virtual disappearance in the 1970s. Instead, in the 1980s, homelessness increased rapidly and drastically changed in composition. The "old homeless" of the 1950s were mainly old men living in cheap hotels on skid rows. The new homeless were much younger, more likely to be minority group members, suffering from greater poverty, and with access to poorer sleeping quarters. In addition, homeless women and families appeared in significant numbers. However, there were also points of similarity, especially high levels of mental illness and substance abuse.

Joseph Rogers and the reform of workhouse medicine

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Old age dependency in historical perspective

In recent years much has been written about old age dependency and the need for greater emphasis on individual and familial responsibility for supporting elderly persons as opposed to state responsibility. We argue that old age dependency is not a new problem and that there was communal responsibility--as opposed to strictly privitized responsibility--for elderly persons in the past.

The poor man's doctor: the rise and fall of the dispensary system in Ulster

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