Could you thrive/survive in the 1850's?

Could I have survived? Nope. Had a massive kidney stone that was removed by extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy.

Back in the day I just would have died after very long, very painful end.... I can see why people drank so much..

 

Pretty much the same here - I had kidney cancer removed by what is just a step away from Star Trek technology that never would have been caught to begin with at that time. Also had my gall bladder removed. Likely many of the people on this forum are also well past the typical life expectancy then as well..

One other thing you see a lot in vintage ads apart from serious pain relievers are medications for heartburn and gastronomic issues due to the foods at hand in much of the newly populated areas. We take our wide variety of fresh and safe foods for granted.

 

Then again, many of us likely wouldn't have the medical troubles we have now had we lived back then. A more energetic life, no processed food, no pollution. It wasn't heaven back then, but it had it's bennies.

 

No medical issues until my mid 50's. Odds are in 1850 I would have been dead long before they became detectable by CAT scan assuming that they were caused by pollution, processed foods, etc.


Mapping History

 

Wonder what caused that statistical dip in 1880?

 

I would have expected a dip after the Civil War, but it seems a few years late. I was unable to find any abnormal disease outbreaks during that time period. Perhaps some data was missing/bad census information? If you skip 1880 and make a line directly from 1870 to 1890 then the graph still looks reasonable.

 

I think that we tend to fantasize that they were simpler times, not true.
War and fighting have always existed the same with all struggles with life . Con artists and snake oil salesmen were every where, so for the general public the gullible were the most vulnerable . Education was not common and most medicine the doctors had to make their own remedies . a fever was dealt with by bleeding the patient significantly, believing the blood was bad and the body would remanufacture fresh good blood.
For snake bite some did nothing while others cut the holes and attempted to suck out the venom. either way it was a crapshoot.
Amputation for broken limbs was SOP the same for frost bite and other damaged tissue.
No known cure for diabetes or many other deceases , however if the kids down the street got mumps or measles you as a kid spent the day or more with them to catch it as well .
There were no treatments for rabies, and usually it was more humane to simply kill the infected rather then let them suffer, that and take a chance of further contamination.
People were afraid of a lot more stuff then, they had good reason to . Probably why many had strong black and white mentality concerning many issues. something different was simply wrong. Traditions were safe .
Why did grandma can food like that ?, she may not have even known, simply going by what she was taught .
WE tend to take information for granted ,like it is a debt owed to those who ask.
Fact is in those days information was the key to survival one man over another. People did not teach trade secrets to their friends nor did they talk business for fear of loosing the trade they developed.
If you wanted to learn a trade other than your dad's, you had to gain the trust of the practitioner of that trade and work for free under him, to learn the trade and even that was limited .
So far as work, some folk traveled for weeks to another part of the country for work and send what they could home , even my dad did this in the early 1900s . and I have read letters written in the 1800s where I got a lot of this information.

 

arleigh, you sound like a cousin Jack. But I've got to admit you are making allot of sense. JMHO.

 

The church I was brought up in was mostly white haired old folk, well in their 80s and my parents would visit with them on sunday afternoons and they would share stories of their life , but like some folk, there were things that they could not bear sharing, memories too graphic and difficult things they simply would rather forget, much like many service men.
Death is not a fearful thing to me , growing up I went to funerals once a month or so ,it was big church .

 

Ain't many sins white haired old folk in their late 80's have left to commit, now a couple of Seaman Apprentice and a Lady of the Evening sitting beside me in a Church pew. Well, I'll bet the Priest has his hands full. JMHO.