Life, Death and the Elderly

Margaret Pelling is Deputy Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in the University of Oxford. She currently researches on health, medical practice, and social conditions in early modern London. Recent publications include chapters on health care 1500–1918 in Caring for Health: History and Diversity, edited by C. Webster (1993). Richard M. Smith is Reader in the History of Medicine and Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine in the University of Oxford. He has published extensively on demographic and family history and is currently working on the elderly and the poor law in early modern England.

`Contemporary social and welfare issues on ageing and the elderly are focused on care in the community, pensions, and retirement age; issues which this book shows have been in existence throughout history, and for which the book provides a useful historical context.' – Health Policy and Planning`An invaluable critical survey of historical writing on definitions of old age since ancient times, on the health of the elderly and its treatment, on their family and household relationships, the limited role of institutions, work and retirement.' – Medical History`Every essay challenges to a greater or lesser extent today's received collective wisdom.' – Population Studies`The research has been of the highest quality and the writings are voluminous and widely accessible.' – Journal of Historical Geography`This volume is at the same time a sample of the most sophisticated approaches to this field of research and an important contribution to present-day debates, for it shows how many of the assumptions about the past used to support contemporary views are misconceptions.' – Labour History Review

• Introduction, Margaret Pelling, Richard M. Smith; Chapter 1 The Manorial Court and the Elderly Tenant in Late Medieval England, Richard M. Smith; Chapter 2 Sufferings of the Clergy, Nicholas Orme; Chapter 3 Old Age, Poverty, and Disability in Early Modern Norwich, Margaret Pelling; Chapter 4 The Elderly and the Bereaved in Eighteenth Century Ludlow, S.J. Wright; Chapter 5 The Medicalization of Old Age, Hans-Joachim von Kondratowitz; Chapter 6 The Elderly and the Early National Health Service, Charles Webster; Chapter 7 The Welfare of the Elderly in the Past, David Thomson; Chapter 8 Welfare Institutions in Comparative Perspective, Mead Cain;