Ah, the good old days

9 thoughts on “Ah, the good old days”

1. The good old days, when making it to 30 made you an elder.

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2. Vaccines don’t often prevent “died in childbirth”. What they do often prevent is “died as a child”, which is what accounts for the very low life expectancies of the past.

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3. To be fair, the average lifespan was in the 30's because of the 40% infant mortality rate. A significant number of people lived into their 60's or 70's. But research indicates that in something like 1 out of 20 childbirths, both the mother and the child died, and the numbers were much higher for one or the other dying.

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4. +John Bump Yeah, I've heard that note about the average lifespan brought down by major mortality rate.

   Even in relatively recent history infant mortality was a major concern. My dad had at least three siblings who never got names.

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5. Well, we're better than fish, which have a 1:1,000,000 survival rate, but my memory is that for most of history the average woman had 8 kids (before dying in childbirth or from disease) and roughly 2.1 of those survived long enough to have kids of their own.

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6. Here [http://www.sarahwoodbury.com/life-expectancy-in-the-middle-ages/] is some looking at some actual statistics; the "60-70" thing looks to have been unlikely even if you got out of childhood. I suspect it was not impossible but the outer end of the bell curve, something aspirational that you might run across once in a while in a village, sufficient to place it at the upper cap of life — Ps. 90:10 'The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.'

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7. It makes a big difference when you take infant mortality (under 5) out – that always skews. Being a kid is basically dangerous.

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8. Це саме Класне.

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9. I'm for vaccines and will continue to promote and eat organic.

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