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The past was not that cute

(juliawise.net)
430 points mhb | 2 comments | 06 Dec 25 21:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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nntwozz ◴[07 Dec 25 14:01 UTC] No.46181743[source]▶
Look at this astonishing graph:

https://kottke.org/25/12/an-astonishing-graph

For most of human history, around 50% of children used to die before they reached the end of puberty. In 2020, that number is 4.3%. It’s 0.3% in countries like Japan & Norway.

replies(1): >>46181796 #
libraryofbabel ◴[07 Dec 25 14:12 UTC] No.46181796[source]▶
Yeah, I thought of this first as well. There is nothing that hammers home the point that the past was a horrible place better than childhood mortality statistics. I’m surprised the author of the article didn’t mention it, given all her focus on families - I mean, good for her for realizing she didn’t understand what life in the past was really like, but she still seems a little focused on “it wasn’t cute” rather than the really big differences.

Related recent HN thread on the Bills of Mortality from early modern London: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46045061

The tldr of my post there is that life before the mass availability of antibiotics after WWII was pretty terrifying.

replies(2): >>46181987 #>>46182965 #
1. kakacik ◴[07 Dec 25 16:36 UTC] No.46182965[source]▶
If that would not be enough, any lack of medical care could be another. 10% chance of dying for every birth for the mother. Flu, any tooth ache, appendix inflammation or any more severe cut would be easily deadly for young and old.

Everybody had tons of parasites and smelled horribly including royalty, think working out hard daily and wearing the same cloth, bathing once a year (maybe). Freedom we consider a basic human right was basically unheard of, everybody was a prisoner of some form of somebody else.

replies(1): >>46183137 #
2. libraryofbabel ◴[07 Dec 25 17:02 UTC] No.46183137[source]▶
I agree on all counts except for irregular bathing among elites, which was more varied with cultures in the past: largely true in early modern Europe, but the upper classes in Imperial Rome bathed pretty much daily and probably didn’t smell too bad.

To the list I would add: a group of horrible diseases (smallpox above all, which killed about a billion people throughout history) that vaccines largely pushed to the margins, at least until recently.