516 Ch. 14 • The Industrial Revolution

Table 14.1. Estimated Populations of Various European Countries
from 1800 to 1850 (in millions)

Country 1800 1850

Denmark 0.9 1.6

Norway 0.9 1.5 (1855)

Finland 1.0 1.6

Switzerland 1.8 2.4

Holland 2.2 3.1

Sweden 2.3 3.5

Belgium 3.0 4.3 (1845)

Portugal 3.1 4.2 (1867)

Ireland 5.0 6.6

Great Britain 10.9 20.9

Spain 11.5 15.5 (1857)

Italy 18.1 23.9

Austria-Hungary 23.3 31.3

The German states 24.5 31.7

France 26.9 36.5

Source: Carlo M. Cipolla, The Fontana Economic History of Europe: Vol.3, The Industrial

Revolution (London, 1973), p. 29.

population tripled during the nineteenth century. The population of pre­

dominantly agricultural societies rose as well. Sweden’s population more

than doubled over the course of the nineteenth century. Russia’s population

also grew substantially, from about 36 million in 1796 to about 45 million in

1815 to at least 67 million in 1851. The population of the Balkans rose from

about 10 million in 1830 to four times that ninety years later.

Nonetheless, disease and hunger continued to interrupt cycles of

growth well into the twentieth century. Cholera tore a deadly path through

much of Europe in the early 1830s and reappeared several times until the

1890s. During the Irish potato famine in the late 1840s, between 1 and 2

million people died of hunger in Ireland. Tuberculosis (known to contem­

poraries as “consumption”) still killed off many people, especially workers

and particularly miners.

Overall, however, the mortality rate fell rapidly in the first half of the

century. Vaccination made smallpox, among other diseases, somewhat

rarer. Municipal authorities in some places paid more attention to cleanli­

ness, sewage disposal, and the purity of the water supply, although the

most significant improvements did not come until later in the century.

Sand filters and iron pipes helped make water more pure. Improvements in

reservoirs, the first of which was built in 1806, increased the availability of

clean water.