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It’s amazing how precarious being born is. I think I read that about 200 years ago around 40% of people didn’t make it past 5 years old or something like that.

It’s amazing how precarious being born is. I think I read that about 200 years ago around 40% of people didn’t make it past 5 years old or something like that. Antibiotics have helped a lot in modern times, especially for mothers giving birth.

retrac 5y ago
The improvement in child survival is attributed to many things, but it may be a mix of vaccinations, less indoor air pollution, much better hygiene, better nutrition, and perhaps just better parenting. (People have had some very peculiar ideas on how to care for and raise children; I wouldn't be surprised if in hindsight our distant descendants consider us woefully inadequate in that regard too.) Most of the progress, in absolute terms, with reducing maternal mortality and the infant/toddler death rate in the industrialized countries was actually made before antibiotics were developed, in the late 19th / early 20th centuries. In England in 1851 about 26% of children died before the age of 5, falling to 23% in 1891, 19% in 1911, 11% in 1921, 9% in 1931, and 7% in 1941 (and then we're in the antibiotics era).
inglor_cz 5y ago
From a pair that has been undergoing IVF treatment since November 2019: it is very precarious. There are a lot of opportunities to die before someone draws their first breath.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
Infant mortality was 165 deaths per 1000 births in the year 1900, according to this... https://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm https://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm ...I also like the link to play the video via Real player in the upper left corner :)
NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
I personally would have 100% died at least once without antibiotics. Probably several times. My top three favorite human accomplishments of all time are: 1. printing press 2. vaccines 3. antibiotics And the order of the last two is debatable.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  I would make the last two consequences of the microbe theory of infectious disease, which also led to sanitary water supplies and waste disposal. Why is the theory an accomplishment? Hooke's and van Leeuwenhoek's first observations of micro-organisms in water drops were treated as a meaningless curiosity for about 150 years, and essentially ignored. Finally it was realised that here was an alternative to prevailing ideas about infectious disease that had great explanatory power. The war of ideas lasted until the early twentieth century, when the last doctors clinging to the "miasma" theory and its ilk finally gave up. The theory made vaccines and antibiotics conceptually possible.

retrac 5y ago

The improvement in child survival is attributed to many things, but it may be a mix of vaccinations, less indoor air pollution, much better hygiene, better nutrition, and perhaps just better parenting. (People have had some very peculiar ideas on how to care for and raise children; I wouldn't be surprised if in hindsight our distant descendants consider us woefully inadequate in that regard too.) Most of the progress, in absolute terms, with reducing maternal mortality and the infant/toddler death rate in the industrialized countries was actually made before antibiotics were developed, in the late 19th / early 20th centuries. In England in 1851 about 26% of children died before the age of 5, falling to 23% in 1891, 19% in 1911, 11% in 1921, 9% in 1931, and 7% in 1941 (and then we're in the antibiotics era).

inglor_cz 5y ago

From a pair that has been undergoing IVF treatment since November 2019: it is very precarious. There are a lot of opportunities to die before someone draws their first breath.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

Infant mortality was 165 deaths per 1000 births in the year 1900, according to this... https://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm https://www.pbs.org/fmc/timeline/dmortality.htm ...I also like the link to play the video via Real player in the upper left corner :)

NaturalPhallacy 5y ago

I personally would have 100% died at least once without antibiotics. Probably several times. My top three favorite human accomplishments of all time are: 1. printing press 2. vaccines 3. antibiotics And the order of the last two is debatable.

tuatoru 5y ago
I would make the last two consequences of the microbe theory of infectious disease, which also led to sanitary water supplies and waste disposal. Why is the theory an accomplishment? Hooke's and van Leeuwenhoek's first observations of micro-organisms in water drops were treated as a meaningless curiosity for about 150 years, and essentially ignored. Finally it was realised that here was an alternative to prevailing ideas about infectious disease that had great explanatory power. The war of ideas lasted until the early twentieth century, when the last doctors clinging to the "miasma" theory and its ilk finally gave up. The theory made vaccines and antibiotics conceptually possible.