I am ever intrigued with how long lived the Ancient Greek and Romans were in spite of near to no medical knowledge whatsoever. They still believed in miasma the

I am ever intrigued with how long lived the Ancient Greek and Romans were in spite of near to no medical knowledge whatsoever. They still believed in miasma theory and, in spite of phenomenal advances in most sciences and culture, medicine remained quite backwards for the entirety of their civilizations. Yet go look at the age of death of most any Roman or Greek. There's some selection bias in that names that we know obviously did not die when they were 15, yet the bias is probably not that large. Aristotle died at 61. And you might think that would be average or old, but he actually died quite young. Wiki has pages on lists of ancient Greeks [1] and Romans [2] to facilitate easier searching. Just picking some names out: Plato - 80 Socrates - 71 (sentenced to death) Antisthenes - 80 Hippocrates - 90 Pythagorus - 75 The reason for the lower life expectancy was largely because of people dying during childhood and infancy. And so it makes one immediately wonder about things like this. Sharing poop rods seems like a great way to spread disease, yet on the other hand the immune system, like much of our body, becomes stronger with use -- the whole concept behind vaccines. Put another way, it seems to me that we're not living as long as we 'ought' be. What would the life expectancy of these peoples be if you gave them their culture and style of living, yet also threw in only imminent life saving interventions from modern medicine? Based on limited data it seems it would begin to challenge the life expectancy of man today, certainly if we exclude the mortality of childhood and infancy. Though perhaps that is also part of the picture. Vastly improved care for infants and children has removed natural selection from that part of humanity. No idea, but each time I read one of these alien sounding tales, it certainly sparks the imagination! [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Greeks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Greeks [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Romans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Romans