It should be added that in the 17th century, only 8% of the population (Europe) lived in cities. Germany today has a larger population today than the whole Europe during 17th century. London during the 17th century is kind of the worst case scenario with high population density and a port city with high amount people traveling in and out, but limited access to medicine and hygiene.

True; in fact mortality in 17th-century London was so bad that it required a net flow of migrants just to keep the population stable. Most of all, you were at much higher risk of plague during the plague epidemics.

But rural Europe was no picnic either - you would still be likely to die in all sorts of painful ways, from sepsis, diseases, accidents, childbirth, etc. And my god, it would have been dull.

Honestly, if you forced me to go back to the 17th century, I would probably take the risk and live in London. At least there is the possibility of crossing paths with Samuel Pepys, Christopher Wren, the early Royal Society etc. while you sit in your coffeehouse reading a freshly-printed news sheet.

> while you sit in your coffeehouse reading a freshly-printed news sheet

A PhD student once mentioned to me that when people envisage themselves in history, they always assume they'd be upper class. No one ever thinks that they'll be poor :-)

It's like when people do past life hypnosis, everyone is a King or a Warrior or an Aristocrat

(Clairvoyant) Ah yes I am seeing your past life, you were an utterly unremarkable person, doing the same things people around you did, saying the same things people around you said, neither especially kind or cruel, but making sure that you stayed alive as much as you could help it.

Gregory Clark's A Farewell to Alms is among the books that discusses this.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Alms>

Cities simply could not grow without net in-migration until the development of sewerage, municipal waste removal, fresh-water systems, and public health in general.

Another favourite illustration, "The Conquest of Pestilence in New York City", showing the overall decline in mortality from 1800 to present:

<https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uTWEATUzgxk/TXQoTibILtI/AAAAAAAAA...>

From: <https://economicspsychologypolicy.blogspot.com/2011/03/conqu...>

Note that for all the vaunted advances of 20th century medicine, the needle hardly moved at all from 1920 through 1990, and mortality increased from 1950 -- 1970. There has been substantial improvement from 1990 through 2000.

>> Also profoundly grateful for vaccines.

Yup

Sadly, I've seen many online arguments resembling "humanity survived millennia without vaccines, why do we need them now?", obviously entirely ignorant of the consistently extremely high childhood death rates, where a couple was very lucky to not have to mourn half of their children. As the article pointed out,

>> "In early modern Europe, almost 50% of children did not live beyond age 15. Around a quarter of infants died before their first birthday."

All one needs to do, at least in New England where I live, is visit an old graveyard and notice that among the pre-1900 markers, the vast majority of gravestones tell of a very short lifespan, many only mere months.

Those same anti-science dolts would be screaming for someone to do something if their children died at such appalling rates, but with willful ignorance declare they know better than literal armies and generations of scientists, medical researchers, and epidemiologists.

As Carl Sagan pointed out, they think their ignorance is better than the scientists' hard-won knowledge.

This anti-science ignorance is a serious issue for any society, and the tension between deliberate ignorance and hard-won science being put on equal footing.