ABSTRACT
In the 18th century, Europe’s main continuing environmental health hazard — as in many preceding centuries — was malnutrition and famine. After the 1740s this ancient health hazard began to recede in Europe as the modern agricultural revolution began. The extreme urban crowding and working-class poverty due to early industrialization in the 19th century resulted in infectious diseases becoming the dominant environmental health hazard. With the rise of modern large-scale industry and of synthetic organic chemistry in the 20th century, pollution of local environments — air, water, soil, and food — became the major focus of environmental health concern in developed countries.
