442Chapter 23
eighty-eight thousand people still received two-thirds
of its calories from carbohydrates, mostly from bread
(see table 23.4). Workers and the poor received 75 per-
cent or more of their calories from bread. August
Bebel’s study of the German diet in the 1880s found a
similar situation, although more calories came from
potatoes.
The people of Antwerp received 10 percent of
their calories from meat and nearly a quarter from ani-
mal products in 1850—a big change from eighteenth-
century averages. Similar studies of the German diet
in the mid-nineteenth century found an average of 1.3
ounces of meat per day, little if compared with today
but an amount that would have indicated prosperity in
the eighteenth century. An increased consumption of
fruits and vegetables came more slowly; they typically
remained expensive, or seasonal, food for most peo-
ple. The introduction of canned foods for Napoleon’s
army did not yield widespread improvements until the
1850s and 1860s. It also did not initially offer great
availability of canned fruit or vegetables, because de-
mand was highest for canned meats and canning was
expensive.
Most studies of food consumption show steady im-
provement across the nineteenth century. A study of
workhouse diets in Britain, for example, found that men
received 2,350 calories in the 1880s–1890s, an im-
provement of nearly 20 percent from the 1830s. Thus,
the poorest level of British society, whom the govern-
ment treated with intentional stringency, ate better,
too. Similarly, a study of German diets found that by
1910 per capita meat consumption had reached 4.5
ounces per day. Even if much of this came in tin cans,
or much of it were horse meat (a habit promoted in
European armies), this average would have seemed
utopian in the eighteenth century.
The chief explanation for this improvement is that
food prices declined significantly. The age of free trade
ended tariffs on food and permitted the importation of
cheaper food from around the world. In London, for
example, the Napoleonic Wars had kept the price of a
loaf of bread—then a four-pound loaf—artificially high
at eleven to seventeen pence and it had fallen to a
range of eight to twelve pence in peacetime under the
Corn Laws. The repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 pro-
duced a price of seven to eight pence per loaf, dropping
to an average of five to six pence for the years
1895–1914. Thus, even if a worker’s wages remained
unchanged during the entire century, in 1900 they
bought nearly three times as much bread as they had in
lean years at the start of the century and nearly twice as
much bread as they had under the Corn Laws.
Technology also drove down food prices. Vacuum
canning, refrigeration, and steam ships enabled Euro-
peans to exploit the agricultural wealth of Argentina,
Australia, Canada, and the United States. The cost of
shipping goods fell sharply. A study of French costs has
shown that shipping goods by sea in 1825 added six
centimes to the price for every kilometer that a ton of
food was shipped, and once these goods reached
France, highway transportation added thirty-three cen-DOCUMENT 23.1
Life in a World Without Anesthesia
A Writer Describes Her Mastectomy (1811)
My dearest Esther,—and all my dears to whom she
communicates this doleful ditty, will rejoice to
hear that this resolution [to have surgery] once
taken, was firmly adhered to, in defiance of a ter-
ror that surpasses all description, and the most tor-
turing pain. Yet—when the dreadful steel was
plunged into the breast—cutting through veins—
arteries—flesh—nerves—I needed no injunctions
not to restrain my cries. I began a scream that
lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of
the incision—and I almost marvel that it rings not
in my ears still! so excruciating was the agony.
When the wound was made, and the instrument
was withdrawn, the pain seemed undiminished, for
the air that suddenly rushed into those delicate
parts felt like a mass of minute but sharp and
forked poniards, that were tearing the edges of the
wound—but when I again felt the instrument, de-
scribing a curve, cutting against the grain if I may
so say, while the flesh resisted... I thought I must
have expired.... The instrument this second time
withdrawn, I concluded the operation over—Oh,
no! presently the terrible cutting was renewed—
and worse than ever....
To conclude, the evil was so profound, the
case so delicate, and the precautions necessary for
preventing a return so numerous, that the opera-
tion, including the treatment and the dressing,
lasted 20 minutes! a time, for sufferings so acute,
that was hardly supportable—however, I bore it
with all the courage I could exert, and never
moved, nor stopt them, nor resisted.
Burney, Fanny. Selected Letters and Journals,ed. Joyce Hem-
low. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1986.