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A comment on Do we really live longer than our ancestors?. Parent comment

Re:Do we really live longer than our ancestors? by ip26 on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @06:50PM (#18135463)
Some of them, sure. But the benefit of not dying horribly of polio or smallpox is pretty nice, as is the wildly better odds of surviving childbirth.

It's kind of anecdata, but have you ever noticed how in classical books from a few hundred years ago, it's sort of normal that Mr So & So might be on his third or fourth wife because the others died in childbirth? Just something that caught my attention.

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Re:Do we really live longer than our ancestors? by HarryHirsch on Wednesday October 03, 2018 @09:04PM (#18136218)
Slightly more recent: B. Traven notes that in the 1920s in Chiapas 50 % of children would die before the age of 6. (He continues that those surviving early childhood could look forward to reaching a ripe old age.)
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