A History of Modern Europe - From the Renaissance to the Present

Preconditions for Transformation 517

Life expectancy increased in all classes. Individuals surviving their first
years could anticipate living longer than their predecessors. Fewer women
died young, thus prolonging the period during which they could bear chil­
dren. Furthermore, wives were less likely to suffer the loss of their partner
during this same period, and therefore were more likely to become preg­
nant. Yet poor people—above all, in cities—remained far more vulnerable
than people of means to fatal illness. In Liverpool, half of all children born
to the poorest families died before the age of five. In eastern and southern
Europe, mortality and birthrates continued to be quite high until late in
the century.
Despite the fact that infant mortality rates remained high until the
1880s, the chances of a baby surviving his or her first year of life rose
because of rudimentary improvements in sanitation, such as a safer water
supply and better waste disposal. “Wet-nursing,” a common practice in
which urban families sent babies to women in the countryside to be
nursed, traditionally had taken a heavy toll on infants because of illness
and accidents. Mothers, particularly poor ones, would not have sent their
babies to wet nurses if keeping them at home did not also pose a risk.
Many mothers needed to work to help keep the family economy afloat, and
not all were, in any case, healthy enough to breast-feed or able to supply
enough milk. Substituting cow’s or goat’s milk could be lethal, and also
had been a cause of high mortality rates during the warm summer months.
Now the practice of wet-nursing slowly declined. Fresh milk became more
readily available, and by the end of the century people were aware that it
must be sterilized.
The decline in mortality, particularly among infants, preceded and
encouraged a fall in the birthrate in Western Europe. With more adults
surviving childhood, the subsequent decline in birthrates had much to do
with choice. The French birthrate, in particular, gradually fell, and then
plunged dramatically beginning with the agricultural crisis of 1846-1847.
Many farming families in France had fewer children so that inheritance
would not be spread too thin.
Europe also enjoyed nearly a century of relative peace, broken only by
brief and limited wars. A Swedish bishop, then, was not wrong to describe
the causes of his overwhelmingly rural country’s rise in population during
the first half of the century as “peace, vaccine, and potatoes.”

The Expanding Agricultural Base

Agricultural production sustained the rise in population (although more eas­

ily in western than in eastern or southern Europe). It also permitted the

accumulation of capital, which could be reinvested in commercialized farm­

ing or in manufacturing. Capital-intensive production (larger-scale and

market-oriented farming) underlay the agricultural revolution. More land

gradually came under cultivation as marshes, brambles, bogs, and heaths