Developments over the last two centuries have shaped the public health specialty that we know today. The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) and its predecessors played a major part in this transformation. It is the oldest independent public health body in the world, and its history mirrors the increasing scope of this specialty since the mid-19th century.The first Public Health Act in the United Kingdom was passed in 1848, bringing Boards of Health and the beginning of organised state influence on welfare. The Act was spurred on by fears of cholera, which caused epidemics in Europe from the 1830s. Industrialisation, poverty, poor nutrition and rapid urban spread led to high death rates from infection and other causes. The 1848 Act encouraged districts with the highest rates of death to appoint a Medical Officer of Health (MoH). At that time, the average age of death, even for the affluent middle classes, was around 45 and children were lucky to survive their fifth birthday. Labourers and workmen died, on average, in their 20s. The Society of Public Health was formed in 1856 and by the late 19th century medical training in the science of public health had progressed, with germ theory replacing the idea that diseases were spread by 'miasmas', such as from the bad smells of poor and dirty environments. In the late 19th century, about three quarters of the population lived in towns or cities and while infection and various types of 'cleansing' still dominated MoH work, there was also increasing concern about diet, housing and education.Another Public Health Act in 1875 provided the impetus for The Royal Society of Health, established in 1876. It was initially known as the 'Sanitary Institute' as public health was often termed sanitary science. Although women were allowed to qualify in medicine at universities from the late 1870s in the United Kingdom, it was a long time before they worked in public health other than as sanitary inspectors for Boards of Health or in nursing. So the next organisation in our history was established as 'The Association of Medical Men with a Qualification in State Medicine, Public Health and Hygiene' in 1886. A stained glass window commemorating its founder, Dr. William Robert Smith, still hangs in the Portland Place premises of the RSPH.The Association was quickly renamed as the British Institute of Public Health and became the Royal Institute of Public Health (RIPH) in the year of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, 1897. The aims of promotion of learning and discussion included giving support for the often isolated role of the MoH. The RIPH meetings sometimes included passing round specimens and test tubes containing cultures of bacteria, presumably with attention to hygiene, as there are no reports of outbreaks resulting from these activities!In 1903, a group of 'sanitary' doctors formed the Institute of Hygiene and started to accredit products with 'hygienic merit', such as soap and disinfectants. …