# Would you still be alive without modern medical technology? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 22, 2012, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234 "2012-08-22T01:08:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![MostlyClueless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@MostlyClueless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MostlyClueless)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/41 "2012-08-22T08:34:31Z")
Ceasarean, and I don’t see shit without my glasses. ---
**Author:** ![gracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@gracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gracer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/42 "2012-08-22T08:45:19Z")
The pill saved me from suicide. Physically I would be fine, but I would definitely have killed myself. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/43 "2012-08-22T08:54:17Z")
Hmmm… hard to say. On the face of it, maybe glasses? but if I _really_ had to, I could probably even drive a car safely without them; and they’re been available for several hundred years now, so not exactly modern. I’ve never broken a limb nor had any internal parts removed, in fact no surgery at all. Disease – a bout of relatively low-grade pneumonia about 10 years ago. Took antibiotics to help fight it, probably would have been sick as a dog for a week otherwise but probably would have survived. And that’s about it. Well, except for everything _else_ that never made it to the “really sick” stage due to vaccinations and/or early antibiotic intervention… Also, how much would modern living conditions matter? (E.g., the fact that when I had pneumonia I could put up my feet for several days in a warm, dry home with plenty of safe food and drink nearby!) ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/44 "2012-08-22T09:07:28Z")
No, I have asthma. I guess if you want to quibble about how modern the tech. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/45 "2012-08-22T10:11:43Z")
Alive, but quadriplegic due to a neck injury. Now have fused vertebrae and a need to explain that BEEP going through metal detectors. ---
**Author:** ![Hogfather65](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7bcc69/32.png) [@Hogfather65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hogfather65)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/46 "2012-08-22T10:27:53Z")
> [@Athena](#): > > Oh heck yes. I had blood poisoning when I was around 12 which turned out to be relatively minor because for some reason I knew that a red line going up my arm meant blood poisoning, so I pestered my older brother (who was babysitting me) to call my parents and take me to the ER. The doc who fixed me up told them that had we waited until morning, it would have been much more serious in a “maybe she would have woken up dead” kind of way. > > If that didn’t do me in, the bit where my pancreas quit spitting out insulin when I was 38 would have taken me. > > Yeah, I like modern medicine. Same here with diabeetes - 35 would have done me - 19 for my older sister and 27 for my young brother - all with type one - lucky us for being born when we where… ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/47 "2012-08-22T10:56:58Z")
My wife and daughter would not have made it past childbirth. ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/48 "2012-08-22T11:18:03Z")
Honestly, I probably would be a ok. I’ve been ill (as in a tough cold with some fever) a few times, but i don’t think the antibiotics I got were lifesavers. Maybe the splinter I had as a kid, would’ve developed into gangrene… but that is sort of reaching for it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/49 "2012-08-22T12:05:29Z")
Another ceasarean, and if I had survived birth my tachycardia would have killed me by about age 20 (I had quite a severe form, that’s now been cured for good by ablation). ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/50 "2012-08-22T12:10:32Z")
In the extremely unlikely event I survived childhood without dying of pneumonia, I’d have died of blood poisoning at 23 or cancer at 28. Yay medicine! ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/51 "2012-08-22T12:30:00Z")
I had a ginormous baby (4,6 kg, over ten pounds) who, in addition to being large, als had a big and wide head. I had a planned C-section; I doubt I would have survived a natural birth. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/52 "2012-08-22T13:02:52Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > I may have died in childbirth, although there’s a chance I wouldn’t have had such difficult births if modern medicine hadn’t intervened in the first place… but them again, the intervention was because of my high blood pressure in late pregnancy which could have had it’s own potentially fatal outcome. I suspect if I’d given birth in an earlier era, there wouldn’t have been a happy outcome. If you had pre-eclampsia, prior to the 20th Century it was often, if not usually, fatal. If it progressed to eclampsia then only cure is to deliver the kid immediately, even today - prior to modern medicine that would have been a nightmare scenario. > [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](#): > > I also have extremely poor eyesight, certainly a disadvantage, but I don’t think myopia genes were as common back in the day as they are now. [Nitpick] The “myopia genes” were every bit as common back then as now. What has changed is the environment. Conditions triggering myopia in susceptible individuals are much, much more common these days, hence the significant increase in the condition. [/Nitpick] Me, assuming I would have survived the antibiotic-treated infections I had as a kid by _eventually_ getting over them on my own (although at least one of the ear infections might have left me deaf, and the pneumonias would have been dicey at best) and the food allergies (which I might not have had in a filth-strewn, parasite ridden Medieval environment), the gastrointestinal illness I had in 2005 would have killed me without IV fluids. So, at best I would have made it to my 40’s. ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/53 "2012-08-22T14:06:58Z")
No major illnesses, infections, trauma, childbirth…I think I’d still be around. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/54 "2012-08-22T14:24:34Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > [Nitpick] The “myopia genes” were every bit as common back then as now. What has changed is the environment. Conditions triggering myopia in susceptible individuals are much, much more common these days, hence the significant increase in the condition. [/Nitpick] We’re also more likely to have to perform tasks where superb eyesight (as opposed to just regular eyesight) is important - nowadays most people in the developed word drive and do some reading. And the diagnostic criteria have changed: thirty years ago I had serious difficulty obtaining my first prescription glasses because the scrip was one diopter in one eye, less in the other, and the doc thought that was “too low for glasses”. Nowadays the focus is less on absolute scrip value and more on whether having the glasses on makes a significant difference in quality of life (mine did: the tree across from the glasses store had individual leaves!). ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/55 "2012-08-22T14:29:37Z")
I wouldn’t have even been started. My mother required life saving procedures when my older sister was born. For me, I would have a crippled hand, a large growth on my tongue which may have become cancer and mentally unstable. But, other than that. . . ---
**Author:** ![BMax](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bmax/32/4267_2.png) [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/56 "2012-08-22T15:33:28Z")
I couldn’t digest milk as an infant, so if I’d been born before soy-based baby formula had been invented, I would have possibly starved to death. As it was, the stuff had to be imported from Japan and was ungodly expensive in the 60’s. I got my first pair of eyeglasses at age 10. My myopia was probably aggravated by reading so damn much, so had I been born in hunter-gatherer days I would probably have great eyesight. Also a motorcycle wreck at age 20 would have left me without a right hand, but with modern medicine I get two steel plates and eight screws holding my ulna & radius together. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/57 "2012-08-22T16:49:34Z")
I would never have existed. My dad would have died around 7-8 without the iron lung at Duke Hospital. ---
**Author:** ![CheeseDonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@CheeseDonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheeseDonkey)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/58 "2012-08-22T16:52:37Z")
Probably but I’d be a blind gimp. I was hit by a car in my youth and broke three bones (arm, leg, pelvis) and lacerated my spleen. The collision messed up my eyes, gave me some sort of post-traumatic glaucoma, and the rest is history. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/59 "2012-08-22T17:11:11Z")
Appendicitis at age 15. I’m pretty sure that would have done me in; hell, it almost did. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234/60 "2012-08-22T17:22:49Z")
I was born about 2 months prematurely, with a birth weight of about 4 lbs., requiring an oxygen enriched incubator for several weeks before I was allowed to go home with my parents upon reaching 5 lbs. in weight. My twin brother at birth did not survive longer than a day or two under what I assume were the same conditions. So no, without “modern medicine” (this was 40+ years ago) I would certainly not be around to be typing this right now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-still-be-alive-without-modern-medical-technology/632234.md?page=4)