/sci/ - Science & Math

[Ancient medicine No.11616017]

Was it really that bad?
Was life before vaccines and antibiotics much more dangerous?

I heard somebody here saying that "die by the age of 30" is just a meme, the problem was high infancy death rate but if you survived during childhood you could easily make it till your 60's or more even if you were a common peasant.

[Anonymous No.11616020]

I'll take 30 years as a Roman conqueror vs 80 years of sitting on a couch having drones drop food in my mouth

[Anonymous No.11616024]

>>11616017
No worse than any pre-antibiotic medicine. Until the mid-20th century, all medicine was just patching you up and hoping for the best.

[Anonymous No.11616067]

>>11616020
People used to live well into the 60's in antiquity.
Roman emperors died young because of assassinations and constant campaigns in exotic areas.
More local rulers lived very long, and healthy at that.
The illyrian king Bardhylis died in battle at the age of 90, imagine that.
All balkanites have had roughly the same life expectancy since antiquity, only other less civilized people living in shittier climates and eating shittier food died young.
That's why poorfagg south slavs, albanians, southern italians or greeks still outlive most westerners with their fancy dollarinos, eurinos and medecine.

[Anonymous No.11616077]

>>11616017

> The Darkness of the Past
https://files.catbox.moe/lyy1gd.webm

> Our Forebears died young....
https://files.catbox.moe/xvv996.webm

[Anonymous No.11616081]

>>11616017
>vaccines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3wgNuatsJI

[Anonymous No.11616277]

>>11616017
>if you survived during childhood
But many didn't, that's the point.
You might as well say "winning the lotery is easy, as long as you choose the right numbers".
If you only cherry-pick the winners, of course life was pleasant. Look at the whole population, and that's another story entirely.

[Anonymous No.11616304]

>>11616017
>I heard somebody here saying that "die by the age of 30" is just a meme, the problem was high infancy death rate but if you survived during childhood you could easily make it till your 60's or more even if you were a common peasant.
Yes that is correct. t. historian

[Anonymous No.11616657]

>>11616017
Sanitation, refrigeration, and nutrition eliminated infectious disease. Just look at the ancient Greeks who lived well into their 80's. Peasants as well. They include infant mortality in averages because they know throwing in some 0-3's will rapidly drag down an average, for maximum fear and thus dependence on the state. "Protect me from that past, I'll do anything to not go back to that!" So obvious.

[Anonymous No.11616664]

>>11616657
And by the way, to be absolutely clear. You cannot reduce death rate in malnourished populations living in squalor by vaccination.
You cannot reduce absolute death rate by vaccination.
You cannot reduce absolute death rate by vaccination.

When you vaccinate village sin Africa, within 5 years they die at much higher rates from other diseases than those you simply left alone. This is because vaccines are not magic, and have an immunosuppressive effect.

[Anonymous No.11616674]

>>11616020
Yeah but you wouldn't be the roman conqueror. You'd be some guy shoveling shit on a farm 9 times out of 10. Not that working on a farm isn't important, but the pool of prestigious jobs is pretty limited in the early iron age. Shit, by the time of the late Roman empire if you were a free man you would likely be out competed by slave labor, it became a huge problem in Rome, many waged workers were unable to ply their trade because the rich simply preferred slaves due to the cost. The past isn't a utopia.

[Anonymous No.11616733]

>>11616081

[Anonymous No.11616738]

>>11616674
>9 times out of 10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

[Anonymous No.11616751]

>>11616738
What does this mean? A group of individuals creating a system of government, tend to create a more equal society if they do not know what role they will take in that society? Where as if they knew they would be say, king's, the society would be less just. Is that the premise of this idea?

[Anonymous No.11616758]

>>11616751
Yes.

[Anonymous No.11616764]

>>11616758
Interesting idea, sounds believable as well.

[Ancient medicine No.11616805]

>>11616657
Let's suppose that I am a Roman peasant and during a day in the field I get cut, I'm not going to bleed out but it needs for sure to get patched, how fucked am I? Did Roman's and Greeks develop some sort of antiseptic method?
And wasn't medical treatment only for the elites?

[Ancient medicine No.11616823]

>>11616674
Wasn't there military conscription too?

[Anonymous No.11616848]

>>11616823
Yes of course.

[Anonymous No.11616855]

>>11616805
There were methods of reducing infection, stuffing maggots in a wound would help clear the necrotic flesh but if you got a serious internal infection you'd just have to hope your immune system took care of it.

[Anonymous No.11616872]

>>11616805
People have never died of small cuts. The notion is absurd, just think about it. People of the old world also had all kinds of poultices for deep wounds, generally based on a wax, an oil, and either essential oils or some other extraction of eg lavender, oregano, thyme, bay leaf, clove, angelica. We've always had antibiotics. It's just that more enslaved populations tend to be made more dependent by being trained to see herbs as evil, rely on Rockefeller chemical medicine, etc.

I don't know why I'm even posting. People can't even go on pubmed and look up essential oils, it's like a youtube comment section in here these days.

[Anonymous No.11616873]

>>11616020
Live 1 day in the past and then get back to me.

You'll be begging to come back the first time you have a toothache and there is no dentist to fix it. Or the next time it's hot you don't have an air conditioner. Or are walking several miles to get water. Or are being brutally tortured to extract a confession to a petty crime.

Think then speak

[Anonymous No.11616914]

>>11616024
>Until the mid-20th century, all medicine was just patching you up and hoping for the best.
Found the dunning kruger effectee

[Anonymous No.11616933]

>>11616873
>no, goy, don't look into the past
>it was a frightfully dangerous place
>things are much nicer now, and getting nicer by the year

[Anonymous No.11616939]

>>11616873 #
>no, goy, don't look into the past
>it was a frightening and perilous place
>things are much nicer now, and getting nicer by the year

[Anonymous No.11616942]

>>11616873
An argument can be made that those hardships didn't make life worse however. Mental health is declining. You're also exaggerating how bad it was. Most people didn't need to walk miles to get water. Most people didn't get tortured.

[Anonymous No.11616947]

>>11616873
God you are so fucking clamped. Wow.

[Anonymous No.11616951]

>>11616942
And except for fillings and reconstruction work dentistry was really the same as it is now, if it's fucked, pull it out.

[Anonymous No.11616961]

>>11616951
Anesthetics is really a godsend though. So too is antibiotics.

[Anonymous No.11616962]

>>11616951
And I'm not even gonna touch the pussy-modern state of not being able to stand a hot day, most people where I'm at were still living without AC in the 70's.

[Anonymous No.11616968]

>>11616961
Those I won't deny, but I also won't deny more excuses to get hammered on weak-shit ancient beer.

[Anonymous No.11617013]

>>11616017
>>>/his/

[Anonymous No.11617186]

>>11616961
>anesthetics
Jesus Christ I can't even imagine what a horror experience must have been a surgery before the advent of Anesthesia.

[Anonymous No.11617213]

>>11616855
If I recall correctly honey too was used to treat wounds.

[Anonymous No.11617246]

>>11616939
Man you just had to bring the Jews into this didn't you. History ebbs and flows dude, some times in the part were better than they are now, others were worse. The human condition consists of peaks and valleys, mostly influenced by economics. Where one empire flourishes and it's people enjoy a golden age, another people toil as slaves beneath it, or are annexed by their military betters. Nothing is black and white. The past should always be looked upon with clarity, so we can learn from our ancestors' mistakes and their triumphs in equal measure.

[Anonymous No.11617319]

>>11616805
they pissed on the wound

[Anonymous No.11617996]

>>11616017
>Was life before vaccines much more dangerous?
no