5 ms·
More Americans died during the Civil War. Life expectancy has increased, and will continue to increase, because of science. Antibiotics only started appearing
by melling 4y ago
More Americans died during the Civil War. Life expectancy has increased, and will continue to increase, because of science.
Antibiotics only started appearing in the 1940s, for example.
Jimmy Carter survived cancer in his 90’s. That likely would not have happened a few decades ago.
- devoutsalsa 4y agoWhat surprised me was learning only 6,800 colonials died in battle during the American Revolutionary War, but 130,000 died from smallpox. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
- bumby 4y agoThere seems to be a relatively large amount of uncertainty in those estimates. One source claims 17k “disease dead” while another claims 130k just from smallpox. The war dead estimates have a wide range too.
- cafard 4y agoWW I is said to have been the first in which more soldiers died of wounds than of disease.