Life Expectancy, Infant Mortality and Malnutrition in Preindustrial Europe: A Contemporary Explanation

Abstract

In Europe's preindustrial and overwhelmingly agricultural society, people did not in general live long lives. While there were exceptions, by our standards, life expectancy was appallingly low for most and almost inconceivable to a modem audience living in an advanced industrial society where longevity is constantly being revised upwards. Europe's impoverished past came-to an end in the nineteenth century with the advent of the agricultural and industrial revolutions. But before then, a great deal of suffering had taken place as Europe, as a whole, was plagued by a very high rate of infant mortality that significantly reduced, statistically, overall life expectancy. Clearly many of the sad deaths from the European past were tied to poor nutrition and the apparent lack of key vitamins, substances that modem researchers would consider as absolutely critical for proper cell development and amino-acid synthesis. In fact, it. could probably be argued that Europe's preindustrial era was beset by a constant avitaminosis of some kind or another.