On Sunday I’m planning some time travel; I’m heading to Brooklyn, NY for a couple weeks beginning Monday, June 8, 1863, just to take care of a couple of details that would smooth things over a LOT for me in this era. Obviously hoping to get out of there before the Draft Riots kick off in July. When I depressurize the cabin, I’m wondering if I’m especially at risk for any common communicable diseases that I don’t have immunity to? On the flip side, could I be posing any risks to my ancestors or other humans as a carrier of a foreign bug that they might not be able to handle?
Similarly, should I be careful about eating the food and drinking the water? Sanitation standards would obviously be very different; a lot of food would be cooked in lead-carrying pewter, etc. etc. Or, would it actually be MORE healthy in 1863 than it is now, with fewer modern-day chemicals and toxins in circulation?
What would the do’s and dont’s be for a transplanted 21st century man?
Given that life expectancy for someone in that era, at birth, was about half what it is today (cite), I’d say that no, it would NOT be more healthy then than now. There are a lot of modern-day chemicals that you’d sorely miss, like tetracycline!
Every real book about history talks about polluted water, food-borne epidemics, piles of horse dung in the street, inadequate sewers, few indoor baths, and air so filthy you could taste it.
People who talk about modern-day chemicals ignore all the thousands of sites that had toxic waste from every kind of manufacturing dumped on site or in the nearest body of body, with stuff that’s still a problem to be cleaned up 100 or 150 years later. Lead? It was everywhere, including the water pipes.
Smallpox is just a start. Cholera, yellow fever, polio, scarlet fever, diphtheria and a hundred other diseases that we’ve mostly eradicated ran rampant. And the ordinary flu would present an interesting problem. You’ve probably had some recent strains. But those are all variants of earlier strains that you would have no protection from.
People who extol the past are historic illiterates. Every bite of food, drink of water, breath of air, and contact with a person might be deadly. And that would go both ways since you’d be spreading germ variants that no one in that world would have seen.
I have to hope you’d die very quickly because otherwise you could be the greatest mass murderer in history. I can’t think of any way to visit the past except via hologram. It’s a good thing that time travel is impossible.
Yeah, but most of that difference in age is because of much higher child mortality. I’m not sure how reasonable it is to extrapolate from these figures.
Given that the OP is only going to be there for a couple of weeks, I wouldn’t worry too much about the absolute quality of food & drink as far as chemicals are concerned, but you might want to take some stuff with you, like antibiotics and definitely get vaccinated for the usual suspects / whatever seems reasonable.
If they’re cooking in pewter pots, you’ve definitely got problems (what with it melting at less than 500°F and all). Pots and pans would mostly be cast iron or maybe copper.
Don’t worry about what you cook the food in, but what is in the food. Potted chicken had no chicken. Meat factories used everything but the squeal in terms of pork. Who knows what’s in those sausages.
I’d be careful to minimize your contact with others. Your antibiotic-resistant bacteria could quickly spread and exchange their advanced genes with the naive, unexposed germs of the past, changing the future timeline and preventing your return to the present you know.
not just horse dung…also corpses of dead horses.
I once read an article in the NY Times about life in 1850 in Manhatten. They quoted a contemporary report which a suggested that maybe, just maybe the city ought to do something about the problem of disposing of dead horses.
Half-ton animals are hard to move, so when a horse died, the wagoneer would just cut it loose and leave it where it fell in the middle of the street.The corpse would decompose for the next several months.
cite: my memory of reading the Times about 15 years ago, in an article about street repairs.
The article started with romantic nostaligia about the cobblestone streets which are now covered with asphalt, and which get exposed during construction. Then ,after the nostalgic reminiscing, the author got a little more realistic, and graphic.
The thing that struck me was the smell…Jeez, you wouldn’t believe. It about knocked me over. I covered my nose the entire time I was there. Speaking of smells, avoid the outhouses, and be careful in the mornings. Right out the windows with the chamber pots. Again, you wouldn’t believe. Don’t trust the water. I found the beer OK though. Watch out for the free lunches that come with the beer in the saloons. The color alone of the meet used to put me off them. Then just look around who was fingering it. OK, nuff said?
Oh yeah, another thing – if it is clear you are not from around then, and trust me it will be…There are guys who, let us say, are not above taking advantage of you - or worse.
And whatever you do, leave the women alone. Sexually transmitted diseases…Any woman you can get…has got um. And the cure…long hot metal knitting needle up the you know what…that and the administration of mecury.
It is good to hear of someone else taking advantage of that era, but be careful. Wait a minute, you’re not supposed to have time travel for another 109 years.