ABSTRACT
In 1729, the English writer, Jonathan Swift, satirized the notion of a monetary value being placed on human beings in an essay entitled ‘A Modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden to their parents or country; and for making them beneficial to the public’:
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London: that a young healthy child, well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food; whether stewed, roasted, baked or boiled…. I do therefore offer it to public consideration,…that the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom; always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table.
