1SOCIAL CONTEXTThe treatments of diseases during Victorian period were immensely dependent on theconcept of climatic shifts as well as individual overindulgence encouraged by climaticconditions and location. This essay will focus on the evaluation of the traditional approachesof Florence Nightingale and John Snow by drawing its connection to Aggleton’s approachtowards social positivism.Nightingale’s formidable expertise of systematic evaluation has provided immensecontribution to the analysis of health care and illness. The systemic approach implemented byFlorence Nightingale to health and illness is related to measures for precaution along withhealth promotion. She relied on the essential aspects of empiricism such as nominalism,quest for laws, hypothesis as means with thorough investigation methods and a sharedmethod with natural sciences. In order to direct, the society and its people Nightingalepublished a book called the Notes of Nursing in 1860, to provide relevant guidance on childcare and physical condition (Bostridge 2015). Her belief primarily focused on the role ofdistrict nurses in training family members the art of nurturing the sick. The mid twentiethcentury witnessed people residing in corrupted and degraded urban circumstances inindustrialized nations where the attitude towards disease was perceived as a punishment fromGod. However, health reformer like John Snow helped in making the life of the patientseasier through the introduction as well as the active use of anaesthesia (Thomas 2017). It is tobe noted that prior to Snow’s introduction of anaesthesia most of the surgeries as well asother treatments were done without it and therefore the patients had to endure a lot of pain(Thomas 2017). In direct contradiction to Nightingale’s belief in self-reliance, Snowpreached the gospel of sanity as well as hygiene and stressed the importance of hygiene innursing and health care. This led to the British government to interfere within the new areasof life, which was earlier considered as confidential, or subject of self-responsibility duringthe time of Nightingale. Though approaches of both Nightingale and Snow were different, it

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Evaluating Traditional Approaches to Health and Illness

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