上位 200 件のコメント表示する 500

[–]A40 1482ポイント1483ポイント  (569子コメント)

The oldsters lived much longer. Many even reached 'Died from tooth abscess' and some reached the venerable 'Died from wound fever.'

The good old days...

[–]PainMatrix 1078ポイント1079ポイント  (520子コメント)

Top ten causes of death in 1850 were all infectious diseases:

  1. Tuberculosis
  2. Dysentery/diarrhea
  3. Cholera
  4. Malaria
  5. Typhoid Fever
  6. Pneumonia
  7. Diphtheria
  8. Scarlet Fever
  9. Meningitis
  10. Whooping Cough

The only one that still appears in the US today (as a top 10 cause of death) is pneumonia

[–]Vocith 628ポイント629ポイント  (113子コメント)

Amazing how many of them boil down to "drinking water someone shit in".

[–]wiiya 699ポイント700ポイント  (73子コメント)

They should've boiled it down.

[–]sidepart 137ポイント138ポイント  (46子コメント)

Hey now! In these Dark Ages, we only boil down beer liquor before leaving it outside to get all foamy. We're not quite sure why, but it sure takes the edge off of all this disease, man.

[–]FuujinSama 37ポイント38ポイント  (39子コメント)

Alcholic beverages became a thing when people needed liquids that wouldn't go bad in a couple weeks.

[–]so_taint 107ポイント108ポイント  (14子コメント)

Alcoholic beverages "became a thing" over 10,000 years ago and it was almost certainly by accident.

[–]YoMomsMacDaddy 165ポイント166ポイント  (12子コメント)

Water...you can boil it, it, broil it, barbecue it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, water-kabobs, water creole, water gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple water, lemon water, coconut water, pepper water, water soup, water stew, water salad, water and potatoes, whataburger. That- that's about it.

[–]Bulovak 24ポイント25ポイント  (8子コメント)

That's why I always boil my milksteak

[–]pburydoughgirl 53ポイント54ポイント  (32子コメント)

When I was in the Peace Corps, our nurse was going over local diseases in training. She started talking about fecal-oral disease and she said, "do you know what fecal-oral disease? It means you ate shit." As if hearing about the symptoms wasn't bad enough....

[–]jjeezy 94ポイント95ポイント  (30子コメント)

When I was in Iraq I caught dysentery. It was the most awful illness ever. I later learned that when I ate a meal with locals, all of the vegetables had been grown in human shit. See they don't have electricity, so in the summer they sleep in their front yard near their crops. They also shit in the front yard because they don't have plumbing. Then they use this shit to fertilize their crops. I ate shitveggies.

[–]stevenfrijoles 35ポイント36ポイント  (13子コメント)

Be honest, when you were eating them, were you looking at the locals, smiling and nodding, going "wow, yeah, very delicious!"

[–]CoolingtonBeans 119ポイント120ポイント  (0子コメント)

With a shit-eating grin

[–]jjeezy 35ポイント36ポイント  (10子コメント)

Honestly I was waiting to get poisoned or have a terrorist run in with an AK. I felt super vulnerable and hated it. Then a few hours later when my gut started churning I thought they really did poison me.

Dysentery took out like 10 guys in my platoon. I had to get an IV and was put in "bedrest", meaning I slept in a gun truck for a day instead of patrolling. It fucked me up. I was explosively letting loose vomit and liquid fire shits. My friend had to get choppered out after he kept shitting himself.

Dysentery is the devil.

[–]acetylcysteine 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

Now imagine you were on the Oregon Trail instead... You probably would die.

[–]suicide_nooch 10ポイント11ポイント  (0子コメント)

Our entire platoon had dysentery. Probably because we were all shitting in the same place in saddams palace yard. The ride in the tracks back to Najaf was fucking terrible. I just remember finally getting off that thing then running off into the desert as fast as I could, dropping my trousers, spraying a fountain of shit into the sunset while simultaneously barfing every ounce of fluid in my body. Dysentery is fucking horrible. I'm not the least bit surprised it killed so many people before we developed antibiotics.

If you have dysentery and even get a hint of a fart coming you better take off your pants and find something to fucking hold onto.

[–]stevenfrijoles 14ポイント15ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sounds like the butthole terrorists won that day.

[–]kingrobin 27ポイント28ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's a reason that "Eat shit and die" is an expression.

[–]nobody2000 1976ポイント1977ポイント  (165子コメント)

Someone should invent something where you take a weakened or dead version of the disease - hell - maybe just some of the marker proteins on the surface of the virus - inject it into a patient long before they're exposed to these diseases, and then over time, it gives them autism so that the parents have something to bitch and complain about.

[–]Lord_NiteShade 405ポイント406ポイント  (78子コメント)

This kind of talk will get your theoretical medical license revoked.

[–]Rooonaldooo99 205ポイント206ポイント  (52子コメント)

Who needs a medical license when you got style?

[–]hansn 113ポイント114ポイント  (13子コメント)

My theoretical law degree can't find a problem with it.

[–]RyGuy_42 8ポイント9ポイント  (2子コメント)

"I'm legally obligated to tell you that I ain't a real doctor." - Dr. Zed

[–]blamb211 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Do you have any idea what could make a bullet hole, that ain't a bullet? Cuz I freaking don't!

[–]nixonrichard 29ポイント30ポイント  (5子コメント)

I don't need a medical license. I'm a better doctor without one.

[–]MrScottehh 22ポイント23ポイント  (13子コメント)

What about my theoretical degree in physics?

[–]greeneggsandhamster 19ポイント20ポイント  (2子コメント)

Did the NCR hire you to fix those solar panels?

[–]ClaytonRayG 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

That would be Fantastic!

[–]MrScottehh 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

They asked if I had a degree in theoretical physics, I said I had a theoretical degree in physics, they said welcome aboard.

[–]vynusmagnus 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

You have a theoretical degree in physics? That's fantastic!

[–]dontmentionthething 42ポイント43ポイント  (4子コメント)

Because the world needs to know that nothing is worse than autism - not even tuberculosis, small pox...

[–]karnoculars 62ポイント63ポイント  (4子コメント)

As a female celebrity with absolutely zero understanding of what you are proposing, I am vehemently opposed to this idea.

[–]wartoli 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

As a male politician who wants to run for President, I too am strongly against this.

[–]xjayroox 16ポイント17ポイント  (4子コメント)

HE'S A WITCH! BURN HIM!

[–]Pufflehuffy 4ポイント5ポイント  (3子コメント)

Ahh, but how do we know that he is a witch? Tell me, what do witches do?

[–]DjingoismUnchained 51ポイント52ポイント  (2子コメント)

It makes me so happy that there are thousands of people willing to come to this website with the sole purpose of making me laugh.

[–]seaniebeag 8ポイント9ポイント  (3子コメント)

Marker protein? What is this witchcraft?

[–]jjbpenguin 53ポイント54ポイント  (1子コメント)

Coming this fall to The Disney Channel:

Mark Air: Pro Teen.

When Mark Air started his sophomore yeah of high school, the last thing he expected was to get signed to the Chicago Bulls.

[–]TheBestBigAl 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

Series finale: Mark dies from Cholera just as he makes the game winning shot.

[–]taxonrestroomvisits 106ポイント107ポイント  (59子コメント)

diarrhea has almost caused my death quite a few times

[–]LumberCockSucker 26ポイント27ポイント  (46子コメント)

I know what you mean, I've had the shits so bad my asshole was in pain.

[–]MrJuwi 18ポイント19ポイント  (11子コメント)

I buy the softest toilet paper but it always ends up feeling like 40 grit by the time it runs its course. Then you get such watery shit, you've gotta wipe both entire ass cheeks or get in the shower after because it feel like you shook up a soda bottle full of feces and opened it up.

[–]LeCrushinator 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

And now I remember why I don't usually read reddit while eating breakfast.

[–]dontgetaddicted 20ポイント21ポイント  (32子コメント)

ahhh, the good ole stomach acid shits.

[–]vixemp 32ポイント33ポイント  (27子コメント)

I don't understand why in gods name we have pepper taste receptors in our buts :( I swear you can taste something really spicy twice

[–]Nachteule 45ポイント46ポイント  (6子コメント)

It's heat sensors. Plants developed capsaicin that connects with your heat sensors (they have a the fancy name transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 1 (TrpV1) - The function of TRPV1 is detection and regulation of body temperature, that's why you start sweating when you eat spicy food) and you think it burns. Birds heat sensors work differently and don't react to capsaicin. That's what the plants "want". They "want" birds to eat their fruits including the seeds. Birds will not destroy the seeds but swallow them. The seeds will pass through the digestive tract and can germinate later. If mammals eat the fruits their molar teeth will damage or destroy the seeds. To prevent that, the plants developed capsaicin so mammals burn their snouts and leave the fruits alone. Most mammals don't like plants with capsaicin for that reason. Except for the humans, we are so stupid that we even seek stuff with capsaicin like Hot Pepper.

[–]gubenlo 13ポイント14ポイント  (3子コメント)

It's because hot flavors aren't actually flavors at all, they're pain signals.

[–]misermiser 15ポイント16ポイント  (2子コメント)

I've died from dysentery and snake bites way too many times.

[–]fanfarius 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Your'e not supposed to drink it!

[–]rex_dart_eskimo_spy 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

It made me wish I was dead once or twice

[–]kwyjibohunter 17ポイント18ポイント  (7子コメント)

Now the top 10 are mostly related to having too much fun, getting too old, getting too fat, or any combination of the 3

  1. Heart disease
  2. Cancer (malignant neoplasms)
  3. Chronic lower respiratory disease
  4. Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases)
  5. Accidents (unintentional injuries)
  6. Alzheimer's disease
  7. Diabetes (diabetes mellitus)
  8. Influenza and pneumonia
  9. Kidney disease (nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis)
  10. Suicide (intentional self-harm).

Source

EDIT: I forgot to mention - or we do it ourselves (re: Suicide). Thanks /u/Nerdn1

[–]N8theGr8 27ポイント28ポイント  (8子コメント)

Tuberculosis is making a resurgence. There's even a drug-resistant strain that is starting to become worrying.

Also, is this list just for the US? Several of those diseases are still problems in third world countries.

[–]PainMatrix 17ポイント18ポイント  (1子コメント)

Not sure if this is just US, but today lung infection and infections leading to diarrhea are the only ones in the top 10

[–]N8theGr8 17ポイント18ポイント  (0子コメント)

Oh, OK. Also I should have noted that there's an important distinction between "leading cause of death" and "still around".

[–]ENTP 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

XDR extensively drug resistant TB. Yea. Shit is terrifying. Basically turns your lungs into cheesy slime.

[–]McCool71 54ポイント55ポイント  (37子コメント)

Top ten causes of death in 1850

And still lots of people claim that modern medicine and pharmaceutical companies are just evil and unecessary.

The fact is that a lot of us - even right now here on Reddit - would not have been here today if it was not for advances in medicine and drugs through the years. And I am not just talking about things that might have killed you directly, but also things that likely would have wiped out a significant amount of our parents, grandparents and so on, making your existence and birth something that would not have happened.

[–]apanthropy 15ポイント16ポイント  (6子コメント)

We really need to get past these Boolean attitudes about shit. It's not a battle between MEDICINE IS GOOD 100% OF THE TIME! and MEDICINE IS BAD 100% OF THE TIME!!

That's low resolution binary shit, we can do better than that.

Vaccines are generally a very good thing, but for example we're finding out that giving a SSRI to somebody legitimately on the ASD spectrum can have seriously bad results. So medicine is still not refined enough in some areas. It's not a Boolean good or bad proposition and nothing else is either.

[–]JannaIsFreelo 35ポイント36ポイント  (15子コメント)

Don't get me wrong-modern medicine is great. I'm not saying vaccines cause autism or doctors are evil or any conspiracy like that. But many companies are focused on profit, which is normal for companies, but it makes them a bit unethical when it comes to medicine. Some research new drugs to sicknesses that already have better ones but try to tilt studies to make it look like the new ones are more effective, just so they can make money off the patent. Obviously yes, medical research is great, and is why we are here today, but focusing on profit isn't helpful.

[–]Chingonazo 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

Sounds like they coulda used more cowbell back then.

[–]rubbishmyjunk 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

And pneumonia doesn't tend to just crop up on its own.

[–]gaspitsjesse 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

... 11. Dissing Terry

[–]know_comment 29ポイント30ポイント  (11子コメント)

wow. so considering the diseases and their transmission, it would seem that the largest healthcare revolution boon was sanitation (and potentially antibiotics), not necessarily vaccination.

[–]SirBaconHam 23ポイント24ポイント  (4子コメント)

I've always said that sanitation is the most important "Discovery " man has ever made. And is probably the only useful thing you could bring to the masses if you were sent back in time 400 years.

[–]jackdunny 13ポイント14ポイント  (1子コメント)

I've thought long and hard about this: even having 2 hour discussions with my boss about it.

He's a metallurgist by trade, with a strong engineering background. He was talking about introducing more reliable alloys and convincing Da Vinci to actually fabricate his helicopter so that aviation would get a jumpstart.

I concluded that I would have little to nothing to show these 400 year old fuckers...besides basic sanitation.

[–]Release_the__bats 20ポイント21ポイント  (3子コメント)

I heard something on Radiolab that a lot of women used to die in childbirth when being treated by a male doctor, and the deaths when women treated other women was significantly lower. Someone eventually figured out that doing autopsies and then not washing your hands before you go deliver a child was causing this. Doctors scoffed at the idea at first, not believing that something so simple could fix that problem. [Also that they couldn't possibly be the problem]

[–]know_comment 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, Semmelweis pissed the establishment off with that whole idea because they were pretty sure fevers were were the result of an imbalance in greek humors and should be cured with leaches.

Interestingly, his theory was deemed "anti-scienceTM" because germs hadn't been invented yet.

[–]CranialFlatulence 11ポイント12ポイント  (3子コメント)

The only one that still appears in the US today (as a top 10 cause of death) is pneumonia

And that generally only happens if there are other issues exacerbating the pneumonia (extreme old age, immune system irregularities, etc.). I've never known of someone younger than 60 and in otherwise good health dying of pneumonia. I'm sure it happens, but it's extremely rare.

[–]From_ether 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Had a girl my freshman year of high school. Drowned on the fluid in her lungs

[–]smash__lampjaw 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

I knew a couple of young people who died of pneumonia. All of them had other heath issues that made pneumonia dangerous though — one had cancer and the other was a quadriplegic.

[–]A40 21ポイント22ポイント  (18子コメント)

And yet when English church records made during the Black Death were audited, tooth infection was the second-leading cited cause of death for those interred.

Wound/skin/tooth infection was a HUGE killer. And it's not on that list... Yay alcohol, the easy disinfectant!! The dirty doctor's (and patient's) best friend!

[–]MaxAddams 54ポイント55ポイント  (9子コメント)

ITT: People who think the black death happened in 1850.

[–]TheTrueFlexKavana 40ポイント41ポイント  (5子コメント)

Well, if it didn't, then what started the Civil War?

[–]MaxAddams 30ポイント31ポイント  (3子コメント)

A long-standing disagreement of economic and representation policies hitting a boiling point between 2 distinct cultures sharing one government...

Slaves.

Ultron!

[–]PainMatrix 15ポイント16ポイント  (3子コメント)

So I think what you're saying is 2015 > 1850 > 1350.

I don't disagree a bit.

[–]tadpole64 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

I heard most people who died from Dysentery where following a trail in Oregon

[–]MTGothmog 3ポイント4ポイント  (7子コメント)

Shiiiiiiit I just got diagnosed with pneumonia yesterday. Like I am on zpac and some cough stuff. But damn that scares me. I am also 27 so not likely to die in my sleep.

[–]xxMarsxx 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

Just in case, can you give us an update tomorrow?

[–]Adddicus 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

Relax, I've had pneumonia three times and it only killed me once.

[–]noimadethis 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Pneumonia is a blanket term for lung infection. The severity of symptoms is highly dependent on organism and host factors. Hell, there's even a fairly high chance you don't even have a bacterial pneumonia and the z-pack isn't needed.

[–]Kind_Of_A_Dick 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

What's the chance of mis-diagnosis due to less advanced medical techniques?

[–]v0rpaul 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

I had bacterial meningitis when I was 5. I lost my hearing due to it. Apparently it was "going around" at the time and in my area. However, I do believe they came out with an effective vaccine shortly thereafter.

[–]cGinnyc 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

CDC and WHO lump flu and pneumonia together now as "lower respiratory infection." I wonder if either would still make the Top 10 list if they were separated. Here's a cool set of top causes of death broken down by state: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/culturebox/2014/06/death_map_the_most_common_causes_of_death_in_each_state_of_the_union.html

[–]FireNexus 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

It should be pointed out that pneumonia as a cause is a bit of a misnomer. It's primarily a complication from other illnesses or the hospitalization caused thereby.

[–]jotch 48ポイント49ポイント  (11子コメント)

My favorite were the people who died from having a headache, so the doctors drilled a hole in their head to let some of the blood out.

[–]corgidogmom 61ポイント62ポイント  (5子コメント)

I can understand why they thought this would help. I have had some awful pulsing migraines where the pressure is so great, I feel like drilling a hole would make it better. Logically it won't, so I take medicine instead. But I can see why they went there at the time.

[–]daygamer69 6ポイント7ポイント  (4子コメント)

I'm pretty sure it actually helped to alleviate the pain though (serious)

[–]KingGilgamesh1979 16ポイント17ポイント  (0子コメント)

No, what's amazing is how many survived trepanation

[–]peter_j_ 23ポイント24ポイント  (4子コメント)

well, that's those who weren't part of the "died before the age of ten" which was nearly 50% of people

[–]Jtk317 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

"I thought I'd make it to death from a tooth abscess but then I took an arrow to the knee..."

[–]EDI-Thor 9ポイント10ポイント  (2子コメント)

Pretty much sums up how ungrateful and ignorant humans are to development and progress.

[–]kfitch42 31ポイント32ポイント  (4子コメント)

Life was nasty and brutish, but at least it was short.

[–]EyeCWhatUDidThere 357ポイント358ポイント  (76子コメント)

Most died of dysentery. That or trying to fjord the river.

[–]bassolune 100ポイント101ポイント  (15子コメント)

Do you mean they were trying to ford a river or ford a fjord?

[–]CykoTom 82ポイント83ポイント  (9子コメント)

turning a river into a fjord. It's pretty had to do. I can see why people died.

[–]citizen_coping 12ポイント13ポイント  (22子コメント)

Serious Question... are there "Fjords" outside of Norway or Sweden?

[–]bassolune 37ポイント38ポイント  (11子コメント)

From National Geographic: " Fjords are found mainly in Norway, Chile, New Zealand, Canada, Greenland, and the U.S. state of Alaska. "

[–]EukaryotePride 18ポイント19ポイント  (2子コメント)

Next time they're going to be in Africa. Gives it a lovely baroque feel.

[–]evilrome 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

United States state of Alaska

State state state tates tates potato

[–]ip70 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yes. Just been travelling round some in Iceland.

[–]Supermans_Boner 10ポイント11ポイント  (1子コメント)

Many were strong for attempting to carry back 50000 pounds of Buffalo meat each time they went hunting.

[–]spacemoses 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

"You shot 50000 lbs of buffalo. You carry back 50."

[–]fappineverywhere 5ポイント6ポイント  (2子コメント)

Set the pace to grueling and just watch the family get smaller. Start with five end with two. Man I miss the trail.

[–]cogman10 9ポイント10ポイント  (1子コメント)

And now you don't have to!

What a glorious era we live in where we can run outdated software in our browsers!

edit different version that is more easily accessible to all browsers.

[–]gangbangkang 164ポイント165ポイント  (25子コメント)

Well at least they could keep the spread of autism under control since they didn't have vaccines.

[–][削除されました]  (116子コメント)

[deleted]

    [–]TheRealFender 27ポイント28ポイント  (9子コメント)

    AC actually saves a bunch of lives every year. Mostly elderly.

    2012 study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that there were 80 percent fewer heat-related deaths in the United States between 1960 and 2004 than there were between 1900 and 1959

    http://www.examiner.com/article/not-just-for-comfort-air-conditioning-saves-lives-during-this-heat-wave

    [–]cheevocabra 25ポイント26ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Yeah, sometimes when my wife is feeling particularly scared of everything, as she's wont to do after reading the news, she's start opining about how scary the world is right now and that she's kind of sad that we brought our daughter into such a horrible time in the world.

    Then I have to spend a few minutes reminding her that we're literally living in the safest, most luxurious, most peaceful, most liberated, healthiest point in all of human history.

    [–]FiveTailedFox 61ポイント62ポイント  (9子コメント)

    I also love when people talk about the good old days and real values. You know like the values 100 years ago that said as a mixed race person I shouldn't exist and I certainly wouldn't be able to be married to my white husband.

    [–]FlowersOfSin 25ポイント26ポイント  (3子コメント)

    Ah, the good old days of when we could order our slave to beat an homosexual to death.

    [–]Cybugger 444ポイント445ポイント  (89子コメント)

    I hate it when people constantly say "We should go back and get in touch with Nature". Do you know what Nature is? She don't give no damns about you. She will bitch slap the living shit out of you with a series of droughts, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions. She will then aid in the developement in a series of bacteria and viruses that will bitch slap your arse, and then lead to an agonizing death where you drown in a puddle of your own blood. She will oversee the production of tasty looking mushrooms, only for them to then kill you in a few days if you get the nerve to eat them.

    Nature doesn't give a flying fuck about you, nor does she protect you. Nature does what Nature does. The only way to stay alive is to get to the top of the food chain, and try and limit the ways in which she decides to RKO your arse. But you're only stalling the inevitable. She is hiding in the shadows of the ring, waiting for the opportune time to destroy you and everything you've ever loved.

    EDIT: Thanks for the sweet sweet gold, kind internet stranger. May Nature have mercy on your soul.

    [–]Kujara 137ポイント138ポイント  (3子コメント)

    Relevant Oglaf comic.

    Keep in mind while this specific comic is fine, most of the rest are very NSFW.

    [–]onewiseowl 28ポイント29ポイント  (1子コメント)

    "We should go back and get in touch with Nature".

    I don't want to get in touch with nature. Because it might try to touch me back, and it usually has claws and fangs.

    [–]ReginaldDwight 4ポイント5ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Please write biology books.

    [–]Logothetes 70ポイント71ポイント  (62子コメント)

    All the while, half a millennium before the time of Jesus, Socrates was so offensive/annoying that his fellow citizens condemned him to death when he was seventy! His student Plato died at seventy five. And almost a century before that, Thales of Miletus died at 78, Solon of Athens at age 80, etc. You go through the names of rulers and thinkers (with known lifespans) and they seemed to live on average well into their seventies.

    [–]permanentthrowaway 181ポイント182ポイント  (10子コメント)

    To be fair, none of the people you mentioned were at risk of dying from childbirth.

    Edit: spelling

    [–]SirDigbyChknCaesar 46ポイント47ポイント  (3子コメント)

    High-velocity childbirth endangers us all.

    [–]Eplore 11ポイント12ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Technically they were - when they were born themself.

    [–]atyon 64ポイント65ポイント  (26子コメント)

    Yes. The main reason life expectancy was so much lower in the past is the high rate of infant mortality.

    Still, there were many more illnesses, accidents were much more dangerous and violence was extreme. Even including both World Wars, the 20th century was the least violent century in all of history.

    [–]Spreadsheeticus 89ポイント90ポイント  (7子コメント)

    Infant mortality, war, famine, plague. Science and technology has allowed us to basically protect ourselves from 4 of the 5 horsemen of the apocalypse.

    Who is the 5th horseman you ask? Old age and Heart Disease. He rides an electric grocery cart and carries a TV remote.

    [–]lxUn1c0 25ポイント26ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Actually, the fifth horseman is Pollution. He took over for Pestilence, who quit in a fit of frustration after the invention of pennicillin.

    [–]thrombolytic 3ポイント4ポイント  (3子コメント)

    Hooray for epidemiological transitions. Infectious disease used to kill us, now chronic disease does. And we're seeing a new transition to (multi) drug resistant infections that will probably kill us all over again.

    [–]Cybugger 28ポイント29ポイント  (6子コメント)

    Dying from a broken bone was a real thing. Shitting yourself to death was common. Women died in droves producing offspring that they couldn't NOT have, unless they refused all forms of sex.

    Got the measels as an adult? Well, you're fucked. Got Polio? Sucks to be you! Got a common cold? Better hope your immune system is working well; if not, thanks for playing!

    [–]SailorMooooon 24ポイント25ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Even if you refuse the sex, sometimes you end up having it anyway, then die from your rape baby.

    [–]Cybugger 7ポイント8ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Well, that got dark quickly. 10/10.

    [–]junkit33 3ポイント4ポイント  (1子コメント)

    If you got lucky you could live to a ripe old age, it's just that the odds of getting lucky were slim.

    [–]WizardofStaz 32ポイント33ポイント  (3子コメント)

    So, people whose jobs required no physical risk or exertion.

    [–]qzcx 8ポイント9ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Socrates was a stonemason and served as a soldier. It wasn't until he was already old that he went around town asking people annoying questions. But like others said it is a biased sample set.

    [–]slyf 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Maybe important people tend to do important stuff when they are older, and thus, it looks like important people lived longer.

    [–]Nuttyvet 4ポイント5ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Perhaps we know of them because they were the outliers who survived. We don't know of Plato's smarter neighbor Greg who died at 10 from infected toenail.

    [–]gebbletook 2ポイント3ポイント  (1子コメント)

    People in ancient times still had a good chance of reaching old age, it just wasn't as good as now. Now 95% of humans born will reach those ages. Back then it was like 20 or 30%, and much much lower amongst the classes that weren't wealthy enough to become philosophers. The average human in antiquity died horribly and young either from warfare or minor ailments like ear infections.

    [–]Nillix 26ポイント27ポイント  (4子コメント)

    This is simplifying a concept to the point where it doesn't even make any sense.

    [–]maxstolfe 72ポイント73ポイント  (14子コメント)

    This is like Facebook-chain level inaccurate.

    [–]azoolie 272ポイント273ポイント  (67子コメント)

    Wow, those aren't even related. Childbirth complications is usually bleeding out, right? What's that have to do with eating well and getting vaccines? Do we really need a badly disguised reason to rally against anti-vacciners.

    [–]AK_Happy 227ポイント228ポイント  (3子コメント)

    "Nobody had Comcast and in the 1800s and they all died during child birth."

    SEE REDDIT COMCAST SAVES LIVES. CHECKMATE REDDIT.

    [–]alice-in-canada-land 37ポイント38ポイント  (7子コメント)

    Childbirth complications is usually bleeding out, right?

    More common was infection following delivery. In the mid-nineteenth century a man named Ignace Semmelweiss studied childbed-fever rates at a maternity hospital in Vienna. He found that rates of infection were much lower on the side for poor women - who were attended by midwives, than on the wealthy side - where women were attended by doctors. He figured out that the midwives washed their hands between patients, whereas the doctors would move directly from teaching autopsy/dissection classes to attending women in labour. He could not persuade the doctors to change their habits however.

    Bleeding out certainly can and does happen. Before the use of anesthetic and antisepsis, Caesarian sections were only performed on women who died during labour - an attempt to save the baby. If a living woman had a stuck baby, the barber surgeons were called in to use instruments to crush the infants skull and remove the baby piecemeal - it was the only solution. Needless to say; women could be very badly injured during this process. Blood-loss and infection often followed.

    [–]pburydoughgirl 98ポイント99ポイント  (8子コメント)

    That was my thought. Yes, modern medicine has made life a lot better. That doesn't mean we should try to subsist solely on cheetohs and Oreos just because we might be able to take a pill to help us live with the biological effects of those decisions.

    [–]h110hawk 11ポイント12ポイント  (1子コメント)

    It also had to do with not washing your hands, especially once the men got involved in childbirth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerperal_infections

    [–]hendy846 48ポイント49ポイント  (22子コメント)

    It's a joke pointed towards medicine back in the day vs. Modern medicine. I wouldn't read too much into it.

    [–]jonesmcbones 15ポイント16ポイント  (7子コメント)

    Do we need a reason to rally against anti-vacciners? They're literally killing people.

    [–]BillTowne 23ポイント24ポイント  (11子コメント)

    The US still leads the industrial world in the rate of death in childbirth, with nearly twice the rate of any other industrialized country.

    [–]dank_matter 9ポイント10ポイント  (0子コメント)

    /r/ForwardsFromGreatGreatGrandma

    [–]patsnsox 15ポイント16ポイント  (1子コメント)

    I dont get it, werent people praying back then??

    [–]bernarddit 2ポイント3ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Those were the days