Health in England (16th–18th c.)
- Abbot, Mary. Life Cycles in England, 1560-1720: Cradle to Grave. London: Routledge, 1996.
Includes chapters on children and youth and primary written and visual sources with suggestions for their use.
- Beier, Lucinda. Sufferers and Healers: The Experience of Illness in Seventeenth-century England. London: Routledge, 1988.
Focuses on the patients and those who treated them, from housewives to bonesetters to surgeons. Includes an analysis of the casebook of Joseph Binn, a London surgeon and some of his younger patients.
- Ben-Amos, Ilana Krausman. Adolescence and Youth in Early Modern England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Discusses the shorter life span of pre-modern people and why youth was so important as a result. Themes include the physical and emotional effects of being an apprentice or a servant. Not an easy read.
- Houlbrooke, Ralph A. The English Family, 1450-1700. New York: Longman, 1984.
A classic work on the importance of understanding family structure in this period as the context to disease and death. Includes a chapter on children.
- Pollock, Linda. Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500-1900 Cambridge University Press, 1983.
A controversial work that argues against the idea that there was little concept of a childhood in the past and that life for the young was a brutal experience. Discusses the treatment of sick children and youth.
How to Cite This Source
Lynda Payne, "Health in England (16th–18th c.)," in Children and Youth in History, Item #166, http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/teaching-modules/166 (accessed September 30, 2016).
- Primary Sources
- Boke of Chyldren by Thomas Phaer [Excerpt]
- "On Scarlet Fever" [Excerpt]
- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu on Small Pox in Turkey [Letter]
- Gin Lane (1751) [Engraving]
- London's Bill of Mortality (December 1664-December 1665) [Official Document]
- John Evelyn's Diary, 1658 [Literary Excerpt]
- Rubeola Vulgaris (measles) [Still Image]
- Infanticide Trial Transcript from the Old Bailey of Elizabeth Taylor of Clerkenwell, London, June 1734 [Trial Record]
- The Graham Children (1742) [Painting]
- Transplanting Teeth (c.1790) [Engraving]
- An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae [Literary Excerpt and Illustration]