Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-08T02:25:04.203Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The condition of the people: public health, diet and nutrition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2009

Michael Wintle
Affiliation:
University of Hull
Get access

Summary

The public health environment

In chapter 1 the condition of the people of the Netherlands came under examination in terms of that population's demographic behaviour; now the focus will narrow to a rather closer range: the questions asked will concern the immediate environment of the Dutch people in the long nineteenth century, and the ways in which their daily lives were affected by these health-related matters. What was life like a hundred years ago, and what were its preoccupations? Were people terrified of death and disease, and which diseases were they most likely to contract? What was their attitude to food? What did they eat? What did they drink? What was the cultural backdrop to food? When did these things change, and why? As well as seeking established patterns, we shall also be looking for changes, and, in that some of the changes were steps in a direction leading to our own society of today, we shall be concerned with the ‘modernization’ of Dutch society. We shall also be seeking to amplify some of the demographic analyses offered: how did the population come to live longer, causing the numbers of people to rise, more labour to be available, and more demand to be generated?

The health-related environment at the beginning of the nineteenth century is difficult to gauge exactly, because of the lack of benchmarks, but there can be little doubt that conditions were atrocious by the standards of today.

Type
Chapter
Information
An Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800–1920
Demographic, Economic and Social Transition
, pp. 40 - 68
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×