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> In a city, if you break your arm, you'll be inconvenienced and in pain for awhile, but you'll be fine eventually. > In the middle of the wilderness, a broken

> In a city, if you break your arm, you'll be inconvenienced and in pain for awhile, but you'll be fine eventually. > In the middle of the wilderness, a broken arm may be a death sentence. How on earth did Americans manage in the times of yore before cities? https://www.life.com/history/w-eugene-smiths-landmark-photo-essay-country-doctor/ https://www.life.com/history/w-eugene-smiths-landmark-photo-...

smt88 4y ago
> How on earth did Americans manage in the times of yore before cities? They suffered and died at high rates for reasons that are now often preventable.
- ttyprintk 4y ago
  Take the only fatality during the Lewis and Clark expedition; appendicitis.
- recuter 4y ago
  Possibly so. Note I underspecified which times of yore. Does this observation apply equally to 1990s as much as 1890s? Both are in the distant past depending on your vantage point. Must be some crossover point for when the era of the rugged individual ended and we all became tethered to urban life by the belly button. I would think living in the boonies has never been easier nor safer what with all the progress, but guess not.
  - smt88 4y ago
    > Note I underspecified which times of yore. You specified a time "before cities" in the US. I assume you're ignoring Native American civilizations, in which case we'd be talking about the era between the late 1500s and mid-1600s. > I would think living in the boonies has never been easier nor safer what with all the progress, but guess not. I'm sure it's safer than it's ever been. The risk of randomly suffering and dying is low. Does that mean it's an acceptable risk for most people? Probably not, especially if they have children.
- blooalien 4y ago
  And today people suffer and die long, painful, preventable deaths literally just because they don't have enough money in their pockets …
  - slaw 4y ago
    That's because thanks to government healthcare is expensive.
MichaelZuo 4y ago
They accepted far higher mortality rates for everything and especially for what's considered minor injuries nowadays.
- to1y 4y ago
  I suspect this is overblown. In the Appalachias for example everyone seems to live to a 100 with no 'infrastructure.'
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    Survivorship bias. All the weaker family members likely died way before 100. But since family sizes were huge back then, it's not like the families would disappear.
MattGaiser 4y ago
That was from a time when we knew comparatively nothing about medicine. Antibiotics were new back then. So people suffered and died from things that are trivially preventable today.
- eloff 4y ago
  People used to routinely die from infections in the prime of their lives back then. The life expectancy at the turn of the 1900's was 47 (and much less if you were black.) People sometimes romanticize the past, which is really doing a huge disservice to how far we've come. I would not want to have been born at any previous time, I'm living in the best time yet. The future will likely be even better. We'll get off fossil fuels, push computers to their limits, expand industry into space, and gain ground on many of the diseases that have plagued us, including cancer and aging itself. The future belongs to the optimists, until it doesn't.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    Note that old life expectancy at birth figures were heavily biased by absolutely insane infant mortality rates. I'm already terrified of the current US 6‰ infant mortality rate; the historical rate of 250-500‰ is incomprehensible to me. Life expectancy at age 10+ in 1900 was closer to 60 years (total); still shortened by infection and accident, but not quite so extreme.
    - tomcam 4y ago
      Let me unterrify you. The number you are looking at is about 5.42 deaths PER THOUSAND, not per hundred. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-05.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-05.pdf
      - pcl 4y ago
        That lines up with 6‰ — that symbol is “per mille”, vs the similar “per cent” or “percent” sign “%”.
dwater 4y ago
My wife and I recently purchased her father’s rural childhood home, and many of his stories about growing up here are about people dying in car accidents and house fires, both because of the consumer safety of the 60’s and 70’s as well as the lack of emergency services.
CalRobert 4y ago
They had lots of babies. Some of them even got to become adults!
guelo 4y ago
There was no america before cities. When the first settlers landed they formed villages that grew into today's cities.

smt88 4y ago

> How on earth did Americans manage in the times of yore before cities? They suffered and died at high rates for reasons that are now often preventable.

ttyprintk 4y ago
Take the only fatality during the Lewis and Clark expedition; appendicitis.
recuter 4y ago
Possibly so. Note I underspecified which times of yore. Does this observation apply equally to 1990s as much as 1890s? Both are in the distant past depending on your vantage point. Must be some crossover point for when the era of the rugged individual ended and we all became tethered to urban life by the belly button. I would think living in the boonies has never been easier nor safer what with all the progress, but guess not.
- smt88 4y ago
  > Note I underspecified which times of yore. You specified a time "before cities" in the US. I assume you're ignoring Native American civilizations, in which case we'd be talking about the era between the late 1500s and mid-1600s. > I would think living in the boonies has never been easier nor safer what with all the progress, but guess not. I'm sure it's safer than it's ever been. The risk of randomly suffering and dying is low. Does that mean it's an acceptable risk for most people? Probably not, especially if they have children.
blooalien 4y ago
And today people suffer and die long, painful, preventable deaths literally just because they don't have enough money in their pockets …
- slaw 4y ago
  That's because thanks to government healthcare is expensive.

MichaelZuo 4y ago

They accepted far higher mortality rates for everything and especially for what's considered minor injuries nowadays.

to1y 4y ago
I suspect this is overblown. In the Appalachias for example everyone seems to live to a 100 with no 'infrastructure.'
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Survivorship bias. All the weaker family members likely died way before 100. But since family sizes were huge back then, it's not like the families would disappear.

MattGaiser 4y ago

That was from a time when we knew comparatively nothing about medicine. Antibiotics were new back then. So people suffered and died from things that are trivially preventable today.

eloff 4y ago
People used to routinely die from infections in the prime of their lives back then. The life expectancy at the turn of the 1900's was 47 (and much less if you were black.) People sometimes romanticize the past, which is really doing a huge disservice to how far we've come. I would not want to have been born at any previous time, I'm living in the best time yet. The future will likely be even better. We'll get off fossil fuels, push computers to their limits, expand industry into space, and gain ground on many of the diseases that have plagued us, including cancer and aging itself. The future belongs to the optimists, until it doesn't.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  Note that old life expectancy at birth figures were heavily biased by absolutely insane infant mortality rates. I'm already terrified of the current US 6‰ infant mortality rate; the historical rate of 250-500‰ is incomprehensible to me. Life expectancy at age 10+ in 1900 was closer to 60 years (total); still shortened by infection and accident, but not quite so extreme.
  - tomcam 4y ago
    Let me unterrify you. The number you are looking at is about 5.42 deaths PER THOUSAND, not per hundred. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-05.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr71/nvsr71-05.pdf
    - pcl 4y ago
      That lines up with 6‰ — that symbol is “per mille”, vs the similar “per cent” or “percent” sign “%”.

dwater 4y ago

My wife and I recently purchased her father’s rural childhood home, and many of his stories about growing up here are about people dying in car accidents and house fires, both because of the consumer safety of the 60’s and 70’s as well as the lack of emergency services.

CalRobert 4y ago

They had lots of babies. Some of them even got to become adults!

guelo 4y ago

There was no america before cities. When the first settlers landed they formed villages that grew into today's cities.