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This article is an attempt to place the origin of sanitary legislation in England, and its chief proponent, Edwin Chadwick, in the overall dynamics of 19th-century social development. It examines the public health movement in light of the transition of English society into the domination of the market ideology, and the effect that this had on health. Emphasis is placed on explaining the utilitarian movement, of which Chadwick was an instrumental part, and its role in promoting the market system through the enactment of the New Poor Law in 1834. The article suggests that the enactment of sanitary reform in the 1848 Public Health Act was the unplanned reaction to the detrimental effects that the market ideology had on health in the industrial centers. The main intent of this article is to go beyond the prevailing belief that sanitary reform was a humane contribution of publicly spirited men. It concludes that this state intervention was materially necessitated: it was forced by the contradictions inherent in the market system.