Childhood was a dark and dangerous time. I looked through some mortality records from medieval England, and aside from the expected killers of children (disease, seizures, etc) one of the most common causes of death was, horribly enough, being burned.
If parents or older siblings weren’t paying attention, it was easy for a toddler to fall into the fire, or a spark catch the hem of their dress. Or to pull hot water or food off the stove onto them. You see a lot of cases like this in the mortality records. In a world where burn care was primitive, shock and/or infection would finish the kid off posthaste.
The adults seemed more in danger of drowning while bathing and swimming in streams, accidents, or running into robbers on the roads (seriously, traveling seems to have been extremely dangerous. Robbers were everywhere).
Nasty meningitis infection as a toddler. Odds of surviving that even with modern medicine were low. Came away with some permanent damage that leaves me struggling to catch up even in modern times and workplace accommodations.
Oops. Checked the wrong one then. Had an abruption at 36 weeks carrying twins. It was touch and go for all three of us at it was, so without modern medicine…
Yes. It’s the “nail” part of “rusty nail” that increases the chances of contracting tetanus, since a nail creates a long, narrow puncture wound that doesn’t flush out easily and provides a comfortable environment away from the air for tetanus to incubate.
Hm, I had all the typical childhood crap other than mumps growing up. I had repeated [as in literally annual bouts] of pneumonia from birth until about 12, ended up with rheumatic fever from repeated annual bouts of strep throat that rendered me allergic to pennicillin [I was on it for 7 straight months until I had a mild reaction that made my doc tell mom that I was now officially allergic to it and to never be given it again. Whereupon about 5 years later a doc in hospital ignored my mom and gave it to me, triggering anaphylaxis. Moron.] Got influenza in the 74 swine flu epidemic. Had 2 disasterous pregnancies that both ended in septicemia for me, and a third that I nipped in the bud as soon as I could arrange an abortion after I found out about it [the first words out of my mouth when the lab tech from the naval hospital called me were You have got to be fucking kidding, I had my tubes tied 10 years ago …:eek:] 2 bouts with cancer internal enough that prior to probably 1900 surgery would not have been able too do anything, and they probably would not have been diagnosed soon enough to do any good. PCOS would have made me go up on a tower with a crossbow/gun/whatever from the pain and hormonal rage. Migraines would have seen me chasing the dragon or stroking out, and my blood pressure and heart issues would also have been possibly dangerous.
Myopia is just a red herring, I can drop spin with my eyes closed, and could cook with low tech just fine. Many household jobs are doable with craptastic vision.
Assuming no serious infections or sepsis from the times I’ve been sewn up I’d be going strong. Any time blood work is done all of my numbers are almost dead center normal. Generally refered to as disgustingly healthy.
This must be similar to another thread because I thought for sure I’d posted, but no.
Without modern medicine I’d be dead as a door nail.
A couple days after an operation I was recuperating nicely from, I got ARDS. From sepsis, apparently.
ARDS is like being suffocated by those dry cleaning bags they tell you to stay away from. The most horrific experience of my life involving a trach, (which barely helped,) feeding tubes, IVs and home remedies (my temp was so high that in the ICU they set a fan up on a box to blow directly on me, which explains my hallucinations about Siberia.) I came out of the coma about a month later asking WTF?
Which means it’s probably a good thing I didn’t live in Medieval times, my favorite era.
BTW steroids are what saved me, got my lungs to moving again.
Probably would have died being born. My mother would have died too, because I wasn’t coming out except by force.
Both my brother and my nephew were premies and without modern medicine they wouldn’t have lived. I am an extremely strong proponent of modern medicine.
I’ve been pretty lucky so far. The only modern thing that has helped my survival has been immunizations. There were no complications when I was born. No major illnesses or infections that I think would have killed me. If anything, I believe I would have been healthier in an earlier era since I likely would have gotten more physical activity. It’s pretty striking when you realize how modern people are killing themselves - quite literally - with sedentary lifestyles.
Of course, in older days, tuberculosis was a lot more common than it is now, so maybe some of us who are otherwise healthy would have died of TB. Had I been born in an earlier era, I probably would have had children by now and might have died from puerperal fever.
I voted alive but miserable because my uncorrected vision is so bad I almost literally can’t read, much less do anything that involves seeing things farther than a few feet away with any clarity; and double miserable because it only started deteriorating after I found out loved reading. =P
I thought this seemed familiar, but look - a poll!
I’d have died from rabies at around age six. If I hadn’t contracted rabies, I’d have had to survive many bouts of strep without antibiotics. And if I’d survived those, I’d be dealing with a thyroid that most likely would have become cancerous by now.
Probably died during childbirth. My mom’s doc told her while she was pregnant with my older sister that she couldn’t give birth “naturally” and ordered a preemptive c-section, but it was the late 60s/early 70s and they told lots of women that back then that might not have needed c-sections, so who knows? If I survived childbirth I would probably be OK - nothing much life threatening in my medical history.
Given how high my blood sugar was when I was diagnosed with diabetes, I fee safe in saying that only the availability of insulin kept me alive that day.
