People's League of Health

The People's League of Health was founded in 1917 by Olga Nethersole (1870-1951). Nethersole was a former actress who joined the British Red Cross in 1916 during World War I (1914-1918). She was on the nursing staff of the Hampstead Military Hospital as a VAD 1916-1919. Nethersole represented the People's Health League at conferences held in Brussels (1920), Lausanne (1924), Washington DC (1926) and Rome (1928). She was the League's representative on the Council of the Central Chamber of Agriculture in 1931. Following speculation that tuberculosis could be passed to be people through milk supplies, the League conducted a Survey of Tuberculosis of Bovine Origin in Great Britain from February 1930 to October 1931. The report of the findings of this survey urged that the "...adequate supervision and control over the health of all persons engaged in the production and distribution of milk should be secured".