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The demographic changes that produced a population expansion in the Eightheenth
Century called for a dramatic restructuring of the economy to provide for this
increasing population, but it was not until an industrial revolution presented
such opportunities that the situation of the poor could begin to improve. The
women abandoning a new-born child to the foundling hospitals were no less
victims of the system than were the foundlings. Before better medical knowledge
was available there was literally nothing that could be done. The most favoured
of these hospitals supported by the monarchs were guided by the latest ideas of
the Enlightement but they failed. The children of the poor were the victims of
that failure.
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