Re-reading Epidemics and Society by Frank Snowden. I was rather surprised by how much of the details I didn't really remember, probably because I didn't want to. If you were born before the late 19th Century, in various times and places you would have been quite likely to contract bubonic plague, smallpox, cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, malaria, and any number of other diseases which, without effective treatments -- and there weren't any -- are appalling, horrific, tortuous beyond description and if you are one of the typically 50% or often fewer who survive, likely to leave you permanently scarred or disabled.
Before the neolithic, that is before widespread practice of agriculture and permanent settlement, the risk of infectious disease was probably lower for most people, but when it happened, you were screwed. Once people gathered in cities, which were for millennia foul beyond anything you can imagine, things got much, much worse. The Black Death killed half the population of Europe and it destroyed society. You don't want to know what untreated cholera is like. I won't dwell on the horrors Snowden recounts, but take my word for it, we're talking really ugly and evil, and it was just the common fate of humanity.
Let's stipulate that Homo sapiens has been around for 300,000 years, and that we aren't worried about Homo erectus. That means that if you had been born in any of the previous 299,900 years, this would have been your likely fate. We live in truly miraculous times, but we seem to have no appreciation for it. So just think about it.
1 comment:
For someone who became aware of the world around him in the 50's the differences from today are astounding. Iron lungs were still a thing, "cancer" was essentially the same as "death sentence", and I now actually look forward to visiting my dentist.
When we get results like this by spending a relative pittance on medical research compared to, say, pet food I wonder what our lives could have been like if the outlays had been reversed.
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