The Life of Man in the 17th Century Was 'Nasty, Brutish and Short.'

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The life of man in the 17th century was ‘nasty, brutish and short.’ I agree with this statement because the living and working conditions for the poor were terrible for most people in the 17th century. The food was poor and was very restricted due to the seasons and the price of it. People were undernourished due to lack of food that they needed, meat was expensive in the winter because they could not preserve it when it was fresh therefore it was salted so that it could last for the winter. Also, the poor relied on their harvests in the autumn for food to last them during the winter but if their crops failed many people starved therefore resulting in many undernourished people. Therefore, because people were so undernourished they had many diseases which became epidemics. Many people weren’t having enough vitamin c therefore resulting in them having scurvy, other diseases became epidemics; influenza, small pox and syphilis due to poor living conditions. Also, due to poor conditions the infant mortality rate was high and many children did not make it to their fifteenth birthday while life expectancy for adults was mid-thirties. Poor people died so young because their living conditions were terrible. They lived in their own filth and waste because there were no sewers or drainage to take it away, even when they threw it out of the house it would drain into the nearby rivers. They would then wash in the river and take water from it to drink, resulting in diseases that sometimes ended in death. Young children often died from diseases that could have been prevented but due to poor living conditions and undernourishment their immune systems could not fight the disease therefore the infant mortalities were high and the life expectancy was low. Medicine was not very advanced and getting medical treatment was difficult as there were not many doctors around and it
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