Maybe dead, definitely retarded. Craniosynostosis.
Probably from eclampsia at 35 (I “only” had preeclampsia, but it would have progressed without treatment). If not then, then a hemorrhage from placenta previa at 40. My body has not done pregnancy very well.
Without a doubt I’d be long gone.
Dehydration from a particularly nasty case of strep throat got me hospitalised at age 3 - without intravenous fluids, I’d probably have died. Assuming it hadn’t, I’d still be effectively blind without my glasses.
And I’d be single (or hitched to someone else), since The Boy was born quite premature and would likely have died well before his first birthday.
Could strep kill you?
I was always getting it as a kid; the doctor said one more episode and my tonsils were coming out.
My tonsils heard him, I guess, because I haven’t had strep in the intervening 22 years.
What about a pilonidal cyst? After surgery and cauterization, I was on 2000 mgs of antibiotics a day to prevent infection of a huge open wound…
What would have happened a hundred years ago?
Same here.
But I’d be blind in one eye from an infection from a scratch caused by a contact lens if medical science had just been 10 years behind.
I always wonder about what people did for stuff that’s inconvenient and potentially dangerous but very easily cleared up now. Like a UTI. If you don’t treat it, bad stuff CAN happen. But it’s so easily gotten rid of now with a round of antibios…what happened in the olden times? I mean, sure, sometimes you can treat them in the beginning with a lot of water/cranberry juice/vit-C, but in the really far gone cases, you kind of need anti bios.
Oddly, the same thing happened to me. I’ve had strep exactly once since my doctor told me that, and it was probably 15 years later. The mono I already had didn’t help the situation, though.
I’m 57, and any minute now. I’ve actually had no life threatening diseases up to now, and have only spend one night in the hospital my entire life, to remove a benign lump on my thyroid, which I never noticed. But I had a heart problem which could have pooled blood in the lower chamber and caused a stroke. It got cured through a pill, and I’m on blood thinner, but untreated I could have keeled over at any minute. I’m assuming of course that polio wouldn’t get me, but I was 6 before I had my first vaccination, so I had good odds of missing it even without.
I was born C-section because my twin and I were breech. The ancients probably knew how to deal with this situation, but I’m still grateful.
I had a inguinal hernia as an infant, which isn’t necessarily life-threatening, but mine seemed kind of scary. Out of the blue, my intenstines began bulging out of my stomach, poking out like a big penis. Don’t know if I would have died if I hadn’t had surgery, but I no doubt would have lived a life full of pain and suicide ideation. Because seriously, who wants a giant penis springing out of the stomach?
Ignoring vaccinatable diseases which could have killed me at any time, the most likely candidate would have been either of my pregnancies.
The first one might have led to a dead baby or dead mother, as they needed to bring out the salad spoons to get him out (he had a big head).
The second one would most likely have killed both of us - I had pre-eclampsia that was turning nasty, so they delivered her 6 weeks early via c-section.
Other than that, the most likely killed would have been one of a handful of asthma flareups that have turned bad but were fortunately broken with meds. Or any number of other flareups that were caught before they went bad.
I’ve fortunately escaped most major illnesses, and injuries have been mostly limited to scrapes, bruises, sprains and the occasional broken arm.
Would gallstones have eventually killed me? Then in my late 30s.
A lot of folks have mentioned nearsightedness as being a risk factor.
I could swear I read that nearsightedness is more common nowadays, though I don’t know if there was an explanation beyond that we’re doing more stuff which requires close-up vision.
But per the linked study, people with glasses really are smarter 
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119649159/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 (no clue whether the study cited has withstood the test of time of course; I stumbled across it trying to find a cite for nearsightedness increasing).
Anyway, back to the topic: I wonder if we’d have been as nearsighted, and if so, would it really have been a problem? We’d likely have heard a dangerous something approaching before we’d have seen it anyway.
At 28, from any one of the half-dozen staph infections I had that year. If not, at 28, from any of the three strep infections I had that year.
That was a bad year.
Age 7 Rheumatic Fever and Sydynhams Chorea.
translate
Heart damage and nervous ticks that keep you jumping like water on a hot griddle, if I survived the strep infection that led to this. I was having nose bleeds multiple times a day for weeks before we found a doctor with a clue on the problem. It took weeks of hospitalization to clear up the infection, not that you’re OK afterward. The infection was stopped before permanent heart damage occurred. Now it hardly occurs and is a rare disease.
Strep could kill you.
Infant mortality…right here!
Dead at <1 year…asthma. Needed an oxygen tent.
Sorry to rain on the parade of some of the former appendicitis sufferers, but acute appendicitis, although a very dangerous and serious condition, is far from universally fatal.
We really don’t know the natural course of the disease very well and we’re unlikely to find out anytime soon, but from the 2005 version of Robbins and Cotran: Pathological Basis for Disease:
Some serious people would argue that even today, with very safe and minimally invasive operations, appendicitis is treated too aggressively.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w36t015204465626/
I think I might still be around. A few bouts with pneumonia as a kid, but I come from solid peasant stock so I think I would have pulled through.
The most life-threatening thing to ever happen to me medically was complications following a tonsillectomy, but in Ye Olden Days I wouldn’t have had the tonsillectomy in the first place.
18, asthma attack. Nearly died as it was.