I think it was mainly less likely because people were so much more likely to die of other causes, so they'd die before the cancer got a chance. Healthcare was a

I think it was mainly less likely because people were so much more likely to die of other causes, so they'd die before the cancer got a chance. Healthcare was at its most basic and out of reach for common people. I'm sure some of our environmental issues make cancer more likely. But we shouldn't imagine that the pre-industrial world was super healthy. People were living in filth. This was in fact one of the reasons they died so soon. It's also one of the few things we haven't really found a cure for. I think because each cancer is a different random genetic mutation that would benefit the most from a custom generated antibody or something. Whereas other major causes of death have been pretty much eradicated by things like antibiotics and vaccines. So I think this makes the numbers relatively higher. And of course because healthcare was so poor, I'm sure there would also be many causes of death misattributed. Even in this day and age we can't seem to standardise it. Some countries attribute every death to coronavirus if the person was infected, others only if it was 100% certain to be the cause of death.