Your life span before modern medicine?

18-05-2012 04:49PM

Ghost Buster wrote: »

24 - Massive inner ear infection requiring a mastoidectomy (Two operations) to stop it eating into my brain.

had exact same surgery at 23. Rare enough for adults to get it

18-05-2012 04:51PM

kwestfan08 wrote: »

Have never had anything serious illness wise thank god but I do have chronic eyesight, -7.5 in both eyes. I reckon I may have come a cropper of something because in back in ye olde good days

-9.5 in bot eyes here!

hardCopy · 18-05-2012 04:55PM

Asthma probably would have done for me around 8 years old. If I'd survived that Glandular Fever would have got me for sure at 16, nearly got me even with modern medicine.

flutterflye · 18-05-2012 04:58PM

The placenta got stuck inside me after labour before - had to have surgery to remove it.
That probably would have killed me actually.
That's mad.
Never really thought about modern medicine in that way before.

Chuck Stone · 18-05-2012 04:59PM

I'm asthmatic so it's hard to know. Would I have been less likely to have asthma in the olden days?
I have no idea.

Wibbs wrote: »

Throughout history it was childhood mortality that really dragged the life expectancy down. If you made it to 20, baring plagues and violent death making it to 60 or 70(even 80) wasn't so unusual.

Indeed. The advent of clean water supply and sewage systems made huge contributions to life expectancy (less disease).

18-05-2012 05:01PM

Nothing serious over here, worst thing I had was a bad abcess removal on my neck that was more cosmetic than anything else.

Nothingbetter2d · 18-05-2012 05:05PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Nothing serious over here, worst thing I had was a bad abcess removal on my neck that was more cosmetic than anything else.

you were beheaded?

Simi · 18-05-2012 05:07PM

I had childhood asthma, but if I was born ~100years earlier I probably wouldn't have had it in the first place, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis

Other than than, no major illnesses. Everyone else in my family on the other hand, would be dead! All have required serious medical intervention at some point in their lives.

Lollipops23 · 18-05-2012 05:12PM

I've has chronic asthma since age 3, hosipitalised on several occasions including a stint in ICU. Doubt I'd have made age 6.

1ZRed · 18-05-2012 05:36PM

I'm really lucky I havent broken a bone or caught something bad in my life.
The nearest I got was suspected meningitis at 12 but it wasn't thankfully:D

earlyevening · 18-05-2012 05:56PM

Would be grand. Never sick. 36.

mrsdewinter · 18-05-2012 06:33PM

Great thread, OP. The worst thing to ever happen to me was pneumonia at 4, which I guess could have killed me 100 years before. Not as scary as an ear infection that eats into your brain, tho...

cocalolaman · 18-05-2012 06:33PM

I'd have probably died multiple times by now if it wasn't for inhalers.

Chuck Stone · 18-05-2012 06:50PM

mrsdewinter wrote: »

Not as scary as an ear infection that eats into your brain, tho...

Earwigs do that too. I know this one guy who went to bed with a fierce pain in his left ear and woke up with a pain in his right.

Turned out that an earwig had eaten its way through his brain from one ear to the other.

flutterflye · 18-05-2012 06:55PM

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Earwigs do that too. I know this one guy who went to bed with a fierce pain in his left ear and woke up with a pain in his right.

Turned out that an earwig had eaten its way through his brain form one ear to the other.

I'm never sleeping again :eek::eek::eek:

The Radiator · 18-05-2012 07:00PM

3 and half fours

Sea Filly · 18-05-2012 07:19PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Look at Jesus' speech about a man may live "3 score and 10(70) or if vigorous 4 score(80)". He was addressing this to an audience of farmers and poor working people. If it was as unusual as some may believe - "ah sure they rarely got out of their 20's you know" - then his audience and later readers would have picked up on it. Kinda like if someone today said "a man may live to 120, maybe 140" he would be thought of as crackers.

Hardly a reliable source, in fairness. And how do you know later readers didn't pick up on it?

As for refusing antibiotics, good luck surviving septacaemia without them. I would have died of said illness a few years ago had I not been given them.

pragmatic1 · 18-05-2012 07:19PM

Had mumps, chicken pox, scarlet fever, the real flu and loads of other illnesses as a kid. Doubt I'd have made it to adolescence. Acute appendicitis at 16 would have killed me.

pragmatic1 · 18-05-2012 07:21PM

hardCopy wrote: »

Asthma probably would have done for me around 8 years old. If I'd survived that Glandular Fever would have got me for sure at 16, nearly got me even with modern medicine.

Yeah had glandular fever too. Highly unpleasant.

LETHAL LADY · 18-05-2012 07:34PM

Apart from childhood ailments I would have snuffed it at 16 from a burst cyst the size of a tennis ball which also took out an ovary. And if that didnt kill me a pulmonary embolism would see me gone for sure at 21. RIP me.:(

Mr Benevolent · 18-05-2012 09:12PM

Sea Filly wrote: »

As for refusing antibiotics, good luck surviving septacaemia without them. I would have died of said illness a few years ago had I not been given them.

Wibbs is a Jehova's Witness who got very mixed up

Bacterial meningitis would be a bit of a challenge without antibiotics too.

cynder · 18-05-2012 09:24PM

I had the normal childhood infections, my daughter would have died at age 7 only for someone created insulin back in the late 1800s. But that wasn't really perfected till mid to late 1900,s .

My son had scarlet fever at 4 a real bad dose, very very high temp, before antibiotics that had a high death rate. My other son had the strep throat and had real bad ear infection (both ears) at 7 months.

Oh if it wasn't for modern medicine I could have died during childbirth at 19, I would have been in active labour for over 4 days with contractions 4 mins apart dialating at 1cm every 9 hours...

bleg · 18-05-2012 09:24PM

Child birth, stick in my eye

18-05-2012 09:26PM

Confab wrote: »

Wibbs is a Jehova's Witness who got very mixed up Bacterial meningitis would be a bit of a challenge without antibiotics too.

I'm guessing Wibbs is just aware that antibiotics are handed out like sweets for every sniffle by some doctors; I generally refuse them myself. Have taken them for infected wounds, which I was prone to getting when I worked with horses, only if the hot water and antiseptic approach failed first. Have thankfully never as an adult had an illness that required antibiotics to recover from.

Jogathon · 18-05-2012 09:29PM

Broken elbow, other arm broken, ankle, cheekbone, laser eye surgery (was blind as a bat), cruciate knee reconstuction. Basically nothing really serious over the years really, but I'd be squinting hidiously at you while waving my wooden walking stick.

18-05-2012 09:29PM

grindelwald wrote: »

I had the normal childhood infections, my daughter would have died at age 7 only for someone created insulin back in the late 1800s. But that wasn't really perfected till mid to late 1900,s .

My son had scarlet fever at 4 a real bad dose, very very high temp, before antibiotics that had a high death rate. My other son had the strep throat and had real bad ear infection (both ears) at 7 months.

I had scarlet fever too, was only 6 but remember it quite clearly, could barely walk from bed to bathroom, had to rest several times on the way, sitting down on the carpet and waiting for my head to stop spinning, then easing myself back to my feet against the wall.

But as the topic of this thread goes and I said earlier, had I been born before sanitation, antiseptic and antibiotics, would never have made it to six to get scarlet fever in the first place!

Greentopia · 18-05-2012 10:06PM

My mother haemorrhaged when she was giving birth to me so I mightn't have made it into the world at all! even if I had survived without modern medicine my Mum might have died

If I did survive that I might have lived to adulthood. I got mumps, measles and chickenpox without any serious complications, never gotten flu or contract any illness or disease, only got antibiotics once for a bacterial lung infection and I don't think that would've killed me.

I had an early miscarriage caused by an ectopic pregnancy a few years ago for which I needed hospital care so in pre-industrial times that may well have killed me. So I'd make it to my thirties. Maybe.

Ginny · 18-05-2012 10:52PM

Wouldn't have made it out into the world. Mum had pre-eclampsia, she spent 5 weeks in hosp, I was nearly 3 weeks late, nothing was budging so she was induced. Finally came out with intervention, jaundiced and needed an incubator. If I survived that the septic tonsils would have done me in at about 5.

Wibbs · 18-05-2012 11:02PM

Sea Filly wrote: »

Hardly a reliable source, in fairness. And how do you know later readers didn't pick up on it?

They didn't and why should they? More to the point if it was such a fantastical notion why have it on public record from at least the second century AD? If you like I can rattle off a list of well known peeps from antiquity who made it to their 60's, 70's 80's and beyond. Ramesses(II) the great of ancient Egypt made it into his 90's. Aristotle was into his 60's, as was Claudius. Augustus Caesar was in his mid 70's. Tiberius in his late 70's. Plato was in his 80's, Socrates was in his 70's and his end was externally hastened from the application of hemlock. Later on? Michelangelo was nearly 90, ditto for Titian, Tintoretto was in his late 70's when death took him. People hitting their 3 score and 10 wasn't so unusual, hence the lad from Galilee's quote wasn't too out there.

As for refusing antibiotics, good luck surviving septacaemia without them. I would have died of said illness a few years ago had I not been given them.

Oh sure, if I had an intractable case of same, dole out the penicillin, otherwise I ain't gonna take that kinda thing for minor shít. "Oooh you've gotten a bit chesty, better dose you up then" mentality. Too often I've seen the results on individuals immune response of taking antibiotics willy nilly.

Mr Benevolent · 18-05-2012 11:12PM

Wibbs wrote: »

Too often I've seen the results on individuals immune response of taking antibiotics willy nilly.

No argument there. I think the your post about antibiotics might've smacked of the ol' 'Internet Hardman' vibe without meaning it.

Your life span before modern medicine?

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