ABSTRACT
The movement of people and goods, for instance, has until recent years been much easier by water than by land. Even in the interior, travel on snow and ice was better than on the bare earth. The moderate rate of increase was maintained into the twentieth century due to a realignment of the population variables. The clergy of the State Lutheran Church were enjoined to keep registers of vital events by an act of 1687. The clergy recorded baptisms, marriages and burials as they occurred. At the end of each year they totalled their entries and sent off the figures to their respective deans. Explanations fall into two broad categories; the one preventive medicine; the other economic growth. Vaccination against smallpox was made compulsory by a royal edict in 1810. Smallpox was but one of the killer diseases that could reach epidemic proportions, in particular places and particular years.
