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‘The seat of death and terror’: urbanization, stunting, and smallpox[Note 1. I would like to thank the following people who ...]
Author(s) -
Oxley Deborah
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
the economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.014
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1468-0289
pISSN - 0013-0117
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2003.00264.x
Subject(s) - smallpox , proxy (statistics) , urbanization , geography , development economics , history , environmental health , criminology , demography , economic growth , sociology , medicine , economics , virology , vaccination , machine learning , computer science
Recent works have investigated whether smallpox stunted growth. The answer is important for disentangling the factors driving changing heights. This article outlines the disease and its history in Britain. It then introduces a new source for the study of smallpox: prisoner records. These offer rich descriptions of individuals, including a pockmarked complexion. While pockmarks were not clearly associated with stunting in Ireland or in most of England, the connection did exist in London. In the metropolis, smallpox acted as a proxy for the worst urban disamenities, being most prevalent in the poorest, most overcrowded parts of the city.