Although trained as a lawyer, Edwin Chadwick earned a place in the history of medicine by encouraging government involvement in health promotion. Reforms introduced during his short-lived public health career included improved sewers and water supply systems needed to accommodate population growth associated with England's Industrial Revolution.

Born in 1800 near Manchester, England, Chadwick moved with his parents to London at the age of 10. There, after studying classical and modern languages, he helped finance his legal training by writing essays for newspapers, including one about life assurance for the Westminster Review that attracted considerable attention.

From that beginning, Chadwick developed what became known as the "sanitary idea," assuring health by creating central and local government agencies to regulate nuisances and provide for clean water and removal of sewage. Rejecting the widely held belief that poor health was largely a matter of fate, he argued that disease arose from correctable...