Did smallpox reduce height? Stature and the standard of living in

Abstract

t is easy to see why smallpox was regarded with such terror prior to the Spread of vaccination in the nineteenth century, for it is 'the most infectious disease ever known' 2 As Macaulay noted, smallpox was the 'most terrible of all the ministers of death'. It exacted a heavy toll on early modern populations, causing a significant proportion of all deaths. For example, Landers finds that it accounted for up to i0 per cent of deaths in London during the eighteenth century.4 But its effect on isolated populations was much more severe: over 95 per cent of those living on the island of Foula died from the disease following its arrival in I720.' Such a death rate was not untypical among populations that had never previously experienced smallpox. In one of the largest demographic catastrophies in recorded history, smallpox reduced the Mexican population by go per cent after its arrival with the conquistadores. Those who survived were left pockmarked for life.6 In this article, we examine the impact of smallpox on the attained heights of those who survived the ravages of the disease. Floud, Wachter, and Gregory's Marine Society dataset,7 which gives the stature and disease history of teenage boys recruited into the society between I770 and i873, offers a unique opportunity to analyse the effects of smallpox.8 We show that the disease had a strong negative effect on the average height of survivors. On the basis of the available statistical material, we argue that