Did tea-drinking cut deaths in the Industrial Revolution?

More or Less: behind the statistics

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Saturday, 9 April 2022 - 9 minutes

Could an explosion in tea-drinking explain a decline in deaths in England during the industrial revolution? Professor Francisca Antman, an economist at the University of Colorado Boulder believes it might.

Tim Harford discovers that dusting down the data from tea shipments and local burial records gives us surprising insight into how boiling water for tea accidentally improved public health.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Nathan Gower
Sound Engineer: Graham Puddifoot

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