Early modern c. 1500 c.1750

• Population doubled from 3 million (1500) to 6 million (1750), but fewer people starved thanks to developments in farming
• England changed from Catholic to Protestant, meaning that some of the wealth of the Church is now held by national government
• Nobles were powerful, but merchants and doctors were now important in society
• The microscope was invented in 1590 and germs identified in 1665 , but not linked to disease until the Industrial period
• Many outbreaks of plague in the seventeenth century, but the worst was the Great Plague of 1665 (mainly in London)
• It ended with the Great Fire of London (1666)
• People still thought it was caused by miasma or God's anger, but they started to consider contagion (touching others) as a cause
• Plague doctors sold scented posies and people smoked tobacco to fight miasma
• Compared to the Black Death, more was done by government: national (Plague Orders, e.g. sufferers and families quarantined) and local (Yarmouth banned cats from streets)
• Usually only the rich were able to leave infected towns
• Industrial England was transformed by the Industrial Revolution and was unrecognisable to previous periods.
• Towns continued to grow: animal excrements in streets and over flowing cesspits contaminated food and water supplie.
• In towns, the rich could have fresh water piped into their homes. the poor could drink from public fountains.
• Scavengers collected waste from houses, selling some of it as fertiliser for farmers.
• The wealthy stared to have unhealthy diets due to rich food being brought in by trade.
• The flushing toilet was invented in 1596 by John Harington, but only became popular towards the end of the period.
• York introduced fines for people who threw human waste into the streets at night.
• In London companies offered piped water into homes but only for the rich
• Architecture built new city centres ( large houses with lamplit streets ) to improve life for the rich.
• Most of the urban poor still lived in dirty conditions
• Between 1720 and 1751 there was a gin craze
• The spirit was dangerously popular because it became so cheap
• The gin act of 1751 imposed harsh punishments on anyone selling illegal gin