I’d have been alive, but unfortunately confined to either the cellar, the attic, or the madhouse. Yikes, what a thought. :eek:
Not directly
(no illnesses, or allergies, or anything) but slavery would have done nasty things to my quality of life & overall life expectancy.
Chicken pox + strep throat when I was six-probably would have croaked without anti-biotics.
Let’s see, then there was a severe ear infection when I was nine.
However, I think my abscessed tooth of three years ago would have carried me off. That was pretty bad, and that was with antibiotics and oral surgery.
Bronchitis at 2, Chicken Pox at 6. Might have survived, might not have.
Also had surgery to repair a badly dislocated shoulder, so I’d be uncomfortable without that. Of course, 200 years ago I wouldn’t have been attempting the Fosbury Flop-style high jump that caused the injury in the first place.
I’d still be alive. Oh hurrah!
I think I might be alive. I’ve never had chicken pox, mumps, or any other child diseases. Only been to the hospital a few times, an ankle infection when I was four (which if untreated probably would have just made me a cripple at most.) A broken collar bone (easily mended on it’s own) and cat scratch fever (yes, it’s a real disease and yes, I got it at age 11.) Seeing as I have no idea how bad cat scratch fever actually is, I am unsure about that. I had to have surgey to remove a swollen lymphnode in my groin area, but I don’t know what might have happened had it not been removed. Maybe it would have blown up like an appendix and killed me, or maybe my bodies immune system would get rid of it for me. All in all, I am damn healty (no crooked teeth, no bad eyes or ears) so I think I could have been a god or something back then.
Ruptured liver in 1963. I think the survival rate for that was around 10% then, and might be around 25% now.
1900 - no way.
I was born 3 months premature and had to spend weeks hooked up to a respirator before my lungs could handle air…
even if they could have managed to dig me out of mom’s stomach, I’d have been doomed.
Maybe dead, long ago. Appendectomy while in junior high, age about 12-13 (1935). If it ruptured 200 years ago it would be 100% fatal.
They used to keep we fortitudinous old-timers flat on our backs for a least a week and usually longer. I almost had to learn to walk again.
Exceedingly fortunate, no serious injuries or other illnesses - yet.
Nothing life threatening here, but lots of chronic pain due to migraines and a herniated disk. If I couldn’t get morphine (which I presume was available 200 years ago) or some other pain killer, I probably would have killed myself.
I’ve got great genes. I’d be one of those people who live way past 70. My descendants would tell the story of how I climbed a tree to steal honey from a beehive when I was 91 or how I fathered my last child at 70.
Dead. Head bashed in for insolence at around 15 years old.
-fh
One of the things that people seem to be assuming here is that without modern medicine, just about any disease would have killed us. I’ve heard people mention thinks like chicken pox, for example (they may be confusing it with small pox, which did kill many). Chicken pox is a virus - your body’s immune system has to fight it off, which is the same thing that it did 500 years ago. For something like a burst appendix or a pre-mature birth, you’d be dead as a doornail. But don’t assume that every minor sniffle requires the use of antibiotics or you’re a gonner - most people are a lot tougher than that. In fact, the prevailing attitude that medical intervention is necessary for every minor ailment is one of the things that has brought us to the point that many antibiotics are less effective than they used to be.
As for me, I’ve had chicken pox and strep throat, but I don’t think either of them would have killed me 200 years ago. I don’t know of any illness or ailment that I’ve had that would have done more than inconvienence me.
However, without modern medicine, I wouldn’t be here : my father had to have his appendix removed, many years before I was born.
Well, I had Chicken Pox as a tyke. 'Don’t know if I would have survived that.
Nearly chopped off the tip of my pinky in a door when I was about 8. I probably would have lost the tip 200 years ago.
Forehead gash wehn I was 6. Probably would have lived, if it didn’t get infected.
Blood poisoning in my foot and leg from a cat scratch when I was 11…don’t know what would have happened without antibiotics.
Severe ingrown toenails, both feet. Might not have killed me, or even crippled me…but might have had to have them treated by by sawbones/barber with no anesthesia. :eek:
Pneumonia, this last winter. I might not have died, untreated. But I probably would have. Heck, things were getting a little close to the wire in modern times.
And finally…Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, coupled with bouts of depression. I’d either have ended up out-writing Edgar Allen Poe, or blowing my brain out with the nearest projectile weapon.
Ranchoth
I had an aneurysm of the aorta which was found when they put me through an MRI because of back trouble. Shortly after I got out of the hospital, Conway Twittie died of the same thing.
Heart attack in the hospital. They used an industrial grade blood thinner, which prevented any damage to my heart, along with saving my life.
Cruelly taken from this world by a burst appendix at age 13.
Well, now. I did have to be hospitalized for dehydration when I was a tiny baby, about four months old… but that was because of an infection I probably contracted from something I was fed. Two hundred years ago, I would most likely have had only breastmilk at that age, and wouldn’t have contracted the virus in the first place!
On the other hand, I have had hyperemesis with both of my full-term pregnancies. It was worse the second time. If it truly gets worse with each pregnancy, it would have killed me by now in pre-birth-control days - either I would have died of dehydration, or I would have been so weakened that an opportunistic infection would finish me off.
My daughter was 7 weeks premature, placenta abrutio (sp?). I had massive bloodloss and needed an emergency c-section. I’d have been dead as a trout at age 27. The baby too.
Jess
I hadn’t even thought of migraines. If either of my childbirth experiences hadn’t killed me, I’d be a morphine or opium addict, due to killer migraines, and probably would have OD’d at some point.
Quite right. They don’t even prescribe anything for chicken pox now, other than oatmeal baths and calamine for itchiness. Chicken pox can be deadly in some cases, but it’s very, very rare.
I’m sure someone will be along shortly and explain how people back then were a hardier bunch, and that we’re a bunch of pansies, what with our immunizations and penicillian and anti-bacterial soaps and whatnot. 