providing any relief not only made the impoverished more prone to contract disease, but also more short-sighted and reckless. There was also no evidence in Alison's mind that the English system of governmental relief had brought any of the negative consequences that the Scottish had attributed to it, and rather “the English people receive a temporal reward for their more humane and merciful management of the poor, in the comparative exemption of most of their great towns from the curse of contagious fever.” Alison also promoted preventive social medicine and initiated a program to vaccinate children against smallpox, and he established Edinburgh's Fever Board to combat epidemics. He advocated speedy diagnosis of the ill and, where found to be contagious or infectious, he recommended fumigation and ventilation of the residence and prompt hospitalisation for the patient. His methods bore fruit during the cholera epidemic of 1831–1832, whereby Edinburgh took immediate and effective action to mitigate the outbreak without awaiting instructions from London. In strongly advocating government intervention to alleviate poverty as a means to combat disease, Alison was ahead of his time but he lived to see public opinion move closer to his initiatives. Personal life He married his first cousin Margaret Craufurd/Crawford Gregory (1809–1849), daughter of James Gregory in 1832; the marriage was childless. Attacks of epilepsy forced him to retire in 1856. He was succeeded by Thomas Laycock. He died at home, "Woodville" in Colinton on 22 September 1859. He was interred at St John's Episcopal Cemetery in Edinburgh. Artistic Recognition A bust of Alison by William Brodie is held by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Works Outlines of physiology (1831) Observations on the management of the poor in Scotland and its effect on the health in the great towns. Alison WP. Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1840. Obituary notice. The late Dr Alison. Edinburgh Medical Journal 1859; 5:469–86. William Pulteney Alison. Pitman J . Proc R Coll Physicians Edinburgh 1989;19:219–24.[Medline] History of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Craig WS. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific, 1976. Observations on the Famine of 1846–47 in the Highlands of Scotland and in Ireland, in Illustrating the Connection of the Principle of Population with the Management of the Poor (1847) W.P. Alison Edinburgh, 1857. Remarks on the Report of Her Majesties Commissioners on the Poor Laws of Scotland W. P. Alison, Edinburgh, 1844. William Pulteney Alison (1790–1859) a Scottish social reformer. I Milne,