title: [Sanitary reform in the British army: introducing knowledge about practical healthcare].
abstract: This paper focuses on the development of healthcare and health instruction in the British army in the late nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Knowledge of health, nutrition and cooking could be just as important for men as for women, even though men did not have so many opportunities to know about these things in civilian life. In fact, the greatest chance for men to learn about healthcare was in military service. Its necessity, especially regarding personal care, was acknowledged at the time of the Crimean war, although it took a long time to put improvements into practice. Cookery developed as an effective way to deliver practical knowledge about health to soldiers; indeed, cooking and healthcare instruction became a part ofArmy regulations and medical officers expected that the instruction given would translate into useful common sense for later life. Cookery education started as training for hospital cooks; later it extended to individual cooking for troops in the field. For many young men, therefore, joining the armed forces provided a unique opportunity to alter their unhealthy life style, not only for the sake of the Army but for their own benefit and that of society at large.
authors.affiliation: King's College, University of London.
authors.forename: Yuriko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Akiyama
mesh_terms: D003296:Cooking / Q000266:history* / Q000592:standards; D006266:Health Education / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008887:Military Medicine / Q000266:history; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000193:education / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom