Teaching Module

Health in England (16th–18th c.)

Bibliography

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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, https://cyh.rrchnm.org/items/show/166 (accessed August 10, 2021).