ABSTRACT
The protectionist features of mercantilism dominated economic thinking from the late-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries, but the post-Restoration period witnessed a move away from the initial focus on bullion and currency towards an emphasis on the role of industry and employment in the generation of wealth. Under this scenario, population acquired unprecedented prominence. The need to use home-grown statistics stipulates a wary approach to the assessment of mortality and morbidity because institutions reliant upon voluntary contributions may have been tempted to ‘cook the books’, whether by discharging patients on the brink of death or by exaggerating the extent to which their health had benefited. If the changing economic ideology produced a consistent gender profile, it helped to transform the nature of philanthropy, intensifying charitable discrimination and fostering new types of organization to put this ideal into practice.
