With soaring cases of gout, rickets and TB, Nel Staveley takes a look at the Victorian diseases haunting our modern nation’s health

SCIENCE and medicine have thankfully moved on quite a lot since Queen Victoria was on the throne.

But, with reports of an alarming rise in everything from rickets to gout, it appears certain diseases have not.

While we might be loving all things retro at the moment, filling our homes with mid-century sofas and dressing in questionable fashions of the Eighties, this is one vintage trend we don't want be following...

RICKETS

Earlier this year, an NHS report revealed the number of hospital admissions for children suffering with rickets had increased four-fold over a decade - in just one year, 2012-2013, there were 833 reported cases. The disease, which can lead to brittle bones and deformities - commonly, bowed legs - is caused by a lack of Vitamin D, a problem for many Victorian-era children due to their often dank, dark working conditions, and a problem for many modern-era children due to their often dank, dark computer-watching conditions. It's not just the kids either; a new study by researchers at the University of Cambridge suggested 10% of adults over 40 may also be vitamin D deficient.

GOUT

A new 'Gout Nation 2014' report by Arthritis Care found one in 40 people now suffer from gout, a form of inflammatory arthritis often, and historically (think Henry VIII), linked with a rich and fatty diet. Symptoms include extremely painful, red, hot and swollen joints and shiny peeling skin, commonly on the big toe but also over the rest of the foot, knees, elbows, wrists and fingers. While people may not be eating castles full of game pie any more, our soaring obesity levels - half of us are on course to be obese by 2030 - inevitably contribute to the new wave of gout. But that's not the whole story; some people are genetically predisposed to a higher risk of gout. Chemical imbalances in the body can also be a factor, and sometimes, it can be a side-effect of other illnesses and medications.

TUBERCULOSIS

Back in the day, Tuberculosis (TB) - the virulent lung disease - was one of the world's biggest killers. It was so widespread, it even had the dubious honour of its own nickname, 'the white plague'. Modern antibiotics soon eradicated the 'plague' though, and by the Seventies, TB in the UK was all but a footnote in history. For a few years, anyway. But recently, TB rates in Britain have increased again. There are now around 9,000 cases, and between 2001 and 2010, more than 4,800 people died of the disease. Public Health England also announced last year that London has the highest rate of tuberculosis of any western European capital. It's thought antibiotic-resistant strains of the virus, plus a rising population leading to increasingly crowded cities (and increasing chances of the airborne virus to spread) are to blame.

MALNUTRITION

We might like to think we know it all about food now, with our Atkins and our gluten-free and our 5:2 diets. But actually, UK levels of malnutrition are escalating, from 5,590 in 2012-13 to 6,690 in 2013-14, a 19% increase in the number of people admitted to hospital with the condition in just one year. Worried experts have pointed to inflating food prices and stagnating wages, forcing people to opt for cheap, frozen and fat-laden options that lack necessary vitamins.

SYPHILIS

It'd be easy to think this sexually transmitted disease was nothing more than an affliction of seedy, Moulin Rouge-esque 19th century French bars and our own 18th century King George III. But it was recently reported that there's been a huge rise in cases, specifically in North Wales, where the 'usual' seven cases a year jumped to 39 cases. The culprit, according to a spokesperson for Public Health Wales, is online dating: "There is evidence that the infection is spreading particularly quickly in people who use dating websites and apps to meet other people for casual sex."