# Wow. Kids Dying in the Old Days **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 11, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463 "2021-08-11T17:28:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![PB\_J](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@PB\_J](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PB_J)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/61 "2021-08-13T00:20:37Z")
My paternal grandmother, born in the mid 1880’s, had 13 children. Only 5 lived to become adults. One child died at 9 yrs old when he was hit by a car/truck/trolley (depends on who told the story) I don’t know the ages or how the others died. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/62 "2021-08-13T02:19:06Z")
When did this happen? Diphtheria antitoxin was available long before sulfa drugs, although maybe it wasn’t accessible in time where they were living. The story of Balto is about an emergency deliver of diphtheria toxin to Nome, Alaska, where an outbreak was raging. [https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/“-great-race-mercy”](https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/%E2%80%9C-great-race-mercy%E2%80%9D) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/63 "2021-08-13T02:25:02Z")
My great-grandfather and my grandmother’s older brother both died of appendicitis (the brother as a teenager). ---
**Author:** ![sunstone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunstone/32/3372_2.png) [@sunstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunstone)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/64 "2021-08-13T03:26:16Z")
I have a great great grandfather on my mom’s side that lost his first 3 wives in childbirth. The fourth wife was able to have several children. Our family has a history of having large babies, which is a problem during birthing. (As a side note, there are genes from males to sire large babies, which is limited by the size of the birth canal. So a biological push/pull exists to reach the largest child with the greatest cranial capacity. Remember that head size is the largest part that must pass through the birth canal. But women’s birth canal is limited by how far apart the hip sockets can be and still have good bipedal walking.) ---
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/65 "2021-08-13T05:00:53Z")
> [@bump](#): > > If you really want to be struck by this sort of thing, go to some of the old cemeteries in Boston or other very old cities like that. > > It’s shocking how many children’s graves there are, and how many relatively young women’s there are. And for that matter, how many people in their 20s through 50s. I was shocked by that- graves of 32 year old women and 40 year old men, for example. This. I remember wandering about a well preserved ghost town. It may have been Bodie, California. I ran across the town cemetery, and was struck by this. I wandered back out after a while dumbfounded that this old old cemetery was full of dead children. Not just forgotten kids, many had beautiful, though well worn headstones, they were obviously from prosperous families. Dead at very young ages. Probably the majority of the graves were kids. > **[Bodie SHP](http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=509)** > > Bodie SHP ---
**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 13, 2021, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/66 "2021-08-13T06:40:10Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > One great great grandfather had 22 children (from two of his three wives) and almost half died as children. I checked it out again and was overstating the number, by a considerable amount. Four of 22 died and one had an accident that left him in a bad condition. My father said that in his town, there was a girl who died from infection from popping a zit back before the war and before penicillin was common. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/67 "2021-08-13T12:12:57Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > I don’t know this for certain, obviously, but I could see where, when children often didn’t survive their first X years that the loss of one in that time frame was possibly not as traumatic. I’ve always suspected it’s part of the reason why wet nursing was so popular among wealthy people in ye olden times in England- if the baby spends its first risky few years elsewhere, you don’t get so attached… In my own family, it seems one set of my great-grandparents had some kind of incompatibility; all but the first child were premature, to varying degrees. I don’t know how many babies great-grandma had overall, but there were 5 who survived to adulthood, including one who apparently held the county record for smallest surviving baby for some time. I know there were others though, before the last pregnancy killed her- not sure if pre or post birth, but I know there wasn’t a surviving baby. ---
**Author:** ![tricoteuse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tricoteuse/32/4334_2.png) [@tricoteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tricoteuse)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/68 "2021-08-13T12:59:04Z")
There was an old cemetary, like late 1700s to late 1800s by my grandparents’ house where we used to play a lot as kids. There were a lot of family plots where the names were all listed on one big central stone and there were a lot of just “baby girl” or “baby boy” on them and didn’t always have dates. We didn’t really understand about death so it didn’t bother us but we did wonder why no one named their babies in the olden days. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2021, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/69 "2021-08-14T15:42:52Z")
While Balto deserves his place in history, a long-overlooked canine hero of the diphtheria antitoxin relay in Alaska, Togo, finally has achieved his deserved fame. "In 2001, Togo received his own statue in NYC’s Seward Park. In 2019, his story was retold in the riveting [Disney+ movie](https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/lifestyle/the-best-dog-movies-on-disney-plus/) _Togo_ , starring Togo’s own [descendant](https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeding/discover-dogs-family-tree-akc-certified-pedigree/) Diesel as the namesake Siberian. > **[Togo: Siberian Husky & Sled Dog Hero Of The 1925 Nome Serum Run](https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/news/togo-siberian-husky-sled-dog-hero-of-1925/)** > > The 1925 Nome Serum Run saved thousands of Alaskans from diphtheria. Balto became famous, but the unsung hero was Leonhard Seppala's Siberian Husky, Togo. Good dog! ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2021, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/70 "2021-08-14T21:55:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The authors observed this without explaining it. The only theory they offered was that there is an invisible social element involved. When society feels that too many people are dying, they tighten up on safety procedures. When the accidental death rate seems low, people engage in riskier behavior. So it appears there is a natural balance. It’s like how when the government mandated seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, people felt safer and responded by driving faster. That’s often called “risk homeostasis.” > [@TokyoBayer](#): > > There was a grand aunt who dressed her son in dresses and frill up u til he went to school. It turns out there had been a baby girl who didn’t make it. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > This happened to Ernest Hemingway, as well, though apparently for a different reason – he apparently looked a lot like his older sister Marcelline, and his mother wanted to present the two of them as twins, so when he was little, she dressed him in frilly clothes and kept his hair long. Those anecdotes probably have nothing to do with the reasons that you suggest. It used to be the standard practice to dress little boys similar to girls. A lot of “settled practices” and “old traditions” are surprisingly recent. > **[When Did Girls Start Wearing Pink?](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-did-girls-start-wearing-pink-1370097/?c=y&page=1)** > > Every generation brings a new definition of masculinity and femininity that manifests itself in children’s dress ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2021, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/71 "2021-08-14T22:31:00Z")
The Hemingway family was (and still is) a trainwreck for other reasons, the most likely being a history of severe depression. ---
**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 15, 2021, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/72 "2021-08-15T00:55:16Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > Those anecdotes probably have nothing to do with the reasons that you suggest. It used to be the standard practice to dress little boys similar to girls. Except in this case it was. The mother had had older sons whom she had not dressed in dresses and frills. That what was remarkable about that the one. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2021, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/73 "2021-08-15T17:28:56Z")
There’s a school of thought that says that children may be healthier if they “play in the dirt”, i.e. more exposed to germs than in disinfectant-bathed households with helicoptering parents. There’s some evidence that early exposure to pets and filth (in mild to moderate doses) makes for less incidence of allergies and asthma. I often see this taken to extremes - as in the case of a recent book called “The Unvaccinated Child”. The authors, a pair of naturopaths (I know, I know) promote the idea that unimmunized kids develop wonderfully healthy immune systems by exposure to all sorts of bacteria and viruse, whose pathogenicity they appear to doubt.\* It doesn’t occur to these people and their followers that children in the (for instance) 18th,19th and early 20th centuries happily played in the dirt and had festive interactions with barnyard animals and their unpasteurized milk and feces. Instead of being wonderfully healthy as a result of all that immune stimulation, their names wound up on headstones in countless cemeteries. I dunno, maybe we’d be better off if TB was still rampant and sufferers (lacking the vitalism that characterizes those of us who avoid modern Toxins) regularly spat in public. Think of the beneficial immune stimulation! \*Pasteur, doncha know, renounced germ theory on his deathbed. Except he didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/74 "2021-08-15T18:27:12Z")
Yes, [Anne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne,_Queen_of_Great_Britain#Pregnancies_and_issue) did have five live births, although one of her children survived until he was eleven: [Prince William, the Duke of Gloucestor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_William,_Duke_of_Gloucester). And he suffered from very poor health throughout his life. ---
**Author:** ![smokey78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@smokey78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smokey78)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/75 "2021-08-20T23:03:49Z")
I’m surprised I only found out about Charlotte Bronte’s demise recently. (wrote Jane Eyre) She was the last surviving sibling in a family of six. At age 36 she accepted a proposal from the family pastor. Her father was shocked because they had known the pastor for years and now he wanted to marry Charlotte? And begged her not to marry and have children as he saw Charlotte’s mother die of childbirth. Charlotte did wed and died along with her unborn child soon after. Experts presumed it was from severe dehydration from morning sickness. (this was the ailment Princess Kate had w/her 1st Pregnancy) . After her death the pastor was so sorrowful/regretful that he agreed to become the caretaker for Charlotte’s father to his last days (he passed at age 84) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/76 "2021-08-20T23:37:28Z")
Family anecdote: One of my great-great aunts was giving birth and was made septic by the doctor who didn’t wash his hands properly for delivery – he had been working on his car which he had trouble starting that winter. She died a month later and at her funeral in deepest, darkest Baltimore February winter, two other family children caught pneumonia and died shortly thereafter. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2021, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/77 "2021-08-21T11:25:23Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There’s a school of thought that says that children may be healthier if they “play in the dirt”, i.e. more exposed to germs than in disinfectant-bathed households with helicoptering parents. I’ve seen this theory with specific reference to polio, where apparently there is a reason it makes sense. What I’ve read is that polio was once extremely common, but children who get it at an early enough age ( \< 6 weeks ?) generally recover with no lasting damage, and are then immune. Thus, with babies crawling around on the floor, nearly all of them would get the disease soon, and recover, and be done with it. But when hygiene became popular, and babies were kept in cribs and playpens instead of crawling around on the floor, that stopped happening. Then, more children (and adults) got polio too late, and it became the epidemic that put a whole generation of [children in iron lungs](https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/children-iron-lung-advent-polio-vaccination-1950/) for life. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2021, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/78 "2021-08-21T12:45:25Z")
My family’s paternal line was considered cursed for generations, because the wives had a habit of giving birth to one male child and dying. My grandmother broke that curse, living into her '90s. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2021, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/79 "2021-08-22T23:05:01Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > I’ve seen this theory with specific reference to polio, where apparently there is a reason it makes sense. What I’ve read is that polio was once extremely common, but children who get it at an early enough age ( \< 6 weeks ?) generally recover with no lasting damage, and are then immune. It must be a lot older than six weeks, since babies can’t generally crawl until around 6 months, occasionally earlier, sometimes older. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2021, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463/80 "2021-08-23T21:40:46Z")
Polio spreads via the fecal-oral route. My understanding is that transmission was facilitated by poor sanitation, including contamination of water supplies by indequate sewage treatment. That problem was largely solved by the mid-20th century, so that it was no longer common for young children to get polio and develop immunity with a low chance of serious complications. The demographics shifted so that polio tended to infect an older population more susceptible to paralysis. So I don’t think crawling on the floor made much difference. On the other hand, crawling in the yard might’ve increased polio transmission if one’s privy was poorly maintained (blurgh). Some exposure to dirt/animals at a young age = possibly beneficial, though one should remember various other nasty things that infected young’uns in the “good old days” when kids routinely got good and filthy without Mama running around spraying disinfectant. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wow-kids-dying-in-the-old-days/948463.md?page=5)