Re:Would you have survived in the middle ages?
by ZeroGravitas on Monday May 11, 2009 @06:21AM
(#603255)
I've just finished reading a history of medicine that claims that medicine's impact on prolonging life is miniscule, maybe 2% of the increase in live expectancy.
The biggest impact is childhood (and prenatal) nutrition and basic sanitation. So if you did get sent back to the middle ages, the diseases would be much less likely to kill you as you are generally much more robust as a result of your late 20th century upbringing, and you'd be less likely to get them as you would understand how they spread e.g. avoiding drinking water with human excrement in it. And of you course you didn't die in childbirth or shortly after, by conveniently being in a different century, which will put you above average in life span too.
And the big message from the book: avoid the doctors. They would actively be weakening you via bleeding, laxatives and emetics, right up until about the 1920s.
The biggest impact is childhood (and prenatal) nutrition and basic sanitation. So if you did get sent back to the middle ages, the diseases would be much less likely to kill you as you are generally much more robust as a result of your late 20th century upbringing, and you'd be less likely to get them as you would understand how they spread e.g. avoiding drinking water with human excrement in it. And of you course you didn't die in childbirth or shortly after, by conveniently being in a different century, which will put you above average in life span too.
And the big message from the book: avoid the doctors. They would actively be weakening you via bleeding, laxatives and emetics, right up until about the 1920s.