Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's best-selling

History Magazine.

I'm Ellie Corpon, recent months have been some of the toughest ever for the NHS.

Since its creation in 1948, Britain's National Health Service has undergone massive challenges

and changes, and its history is a fascinating one.

For today's podcast, Subeditor Rianne and Davies spoke to the historian Susan Cohen, whose

latest book traces the history of the NHS, to find out more about the service over the

decades, from the perspective of both healthcare workers and patients.

So to kick things off, what was health like in England before the NHS, in terms of both

the health of its people and the healthcare that was on offer to them?

Okay, so if we look at the state of the nation from about 1900 onwards, pre-second world

war, the diseases you would associate with poverty, poor living conditions and overcrowding

were normal, and the diseases would have been things like diphtheria, tuberculosis and

industrial illnesses, and I'm particularly thinking there of the miners and whales and

the connection with nibevon.

Infant mortality rates were still high, children were very often malnourished and they suffered

from things like rickets which you wouldn't even see today with distorted leg bones, and

maternal mortality was high.

Now, it's unfortunate thing that war had a beneficial unintended consequence actually.

In the Vicarance of Boys the Second World War, in 1939, the Ministry of Food was established

to ensure that the nation had a very good healthy diet during the war years.

Rationing was introduced and resulted in people altering their diets and eating more healthfully

...