4 ms·

The average life expectancy was most likely less than it'd have taken to die from lead poisoning.

by cosmodisk 7y ago

dekhn 7y ago
Kind of.... in antiquity (really anything more than 100-150 years ago), age of average mortality was dominated by deaths of the extremely young... but the reality is that people who did survive, often lived to their late 50s and early 60s.
- quickthrowman 7y ago
  Yep, if you survived childhood, you’d likely live long enough to see grandkids and ‘retire’ in Rome. In addition, a Roman army field medic/surgeon from the late republic/early empire onward was probably just as effective as any medic/doctor anywhere until the 19th century. Amputations, suturing lacerations, and so on didn’t really change at all until antiseptics and antibiotics. It’s crazy to think how medicine didn’t really advance for ~2000 years, and then vaccinations, antiseptics, and anesthesia (and later antibiotics) came into use and medicine advanced rapidly. Oh, add in a dash of germ theory and the scientific method, and stir. The Romans were really quite amazing!
aksss 7y ago
A) lead poisoning has horrible debilitating effects aside from death (death is not the important measure) B) Excluding infant mortality, you were generally good to go to 55-60 in Rome, about where the US was in 1920's or 30's time frame. C) that's plenty of time for acute or chronic lead poisoning to F anybody up.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Not really. Highest mortality was among infants and young children. Once you reached age 20, odds were quite good of living to 60. Elders of 80+ years were common. These are data from England and Wales, 1700 to present, but would all but certainly have been similar for ancient Rome: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy-b...

4 ms·

The average life expectancy was most likely less than it'd have taken to die from lead poisoning.

by cosmodisk 7y ago

The average life expectancy was most likely less than it'd have taken to die from lead poisoning.

dekhn 7y ago
Kind of.... in antiquity (really anything more than 100-150 years ago), age of average mortality was dominated by deaths of the extremely young... but the reality is that people who did survive, often lived to their late 50s and early 60s.
- quickthrowman 7y ago
  Yep, if you survived childhood, you’d likely live long enough to see grandkids and ‘retire’ in Rome. In addition, a Roman army field medic/surgeon from the late republic/early empire onward was probably just as effective as any medic/doctor anywhere until the 19th century. Amputations, suturing lacerations, and so on didn’t really change at all until antiseptics and antibiotics. It’s crazy to think how medicine didn’t really advance for ~2000 years, and then vaccinations, antiseptics, and anesthesia (and later antibiotics) came into use and medicine advanced rapidly. Oh, add in a dash of germ theory and the scientific method, and stir. The Romans were really quite amazing!
aksss 7y ago
A) lead poisoning has horrible debilitating effects aside from death (death is not the important measure) B) Excluding infant mortality, you were generally good to go to 55-60 in Rome, about where the US was in 1920's or 30's time frame. C) that's plenty of time for acute or chronic lead poisoning to F anybody up.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Not really. Highest mortality was among infants and young children. Once you reached age 20, odds were quite good of living to 60. Elders of 80+ years were common. These are data from England and Wales, 1700 to present, but would all but certainly have been similar for ancient Rome: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy-by-age-in-the-UK-1700-to-2013.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/05/Life-expectancy-b...