We are pleased to announce that the 2015 Seminar presentation “Learning hygiene: mortality patterns by religion in the Don Army Territory (Southern Russia), 1867-1916" by Dr Noël Bonneuil has now been published in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History.
The presentation was part of a Trinity Term 2015 seminar series "Historical Demography – A Place in Modern Demography?" organised by the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing.
The Don Army Territory in southern Russia over the period 1867-1916 offers a unique opportunity to follow mortality variations across religious denominations (Orthodox, Old Believers and Coreligionists, Catholics, Lutherans, Jews, Armenian-Gregorians, Buddhists, and Muslims), in a context of severe climatic conditions, urbanisation, and improvements in hygiene and medicine. Denominational groups were differentiated by ways of life, residential segmentation, hygiene practices, and medical knowledge. The most educated and urban denominations had the lowest mortality. Religions characterized mortality patterns, doing duty for non-existent or scarce physicians among the Orthodox, laying down rules of hygiene, and promoting doctrine on fertility and child care.
Article Information:
Noël Bonneuil and Elena Fursa (2017) Learning Hygiene: Mortality Patterns by Religion in the Don Army Territory (Southern Russia), 1867–1916. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 47:3, 287–332.
