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Health risks of travel in early-modern Britain
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoTravel is still risky. Automobile accidents are, by a substantial margin, the leading cause of death in young people. It may have been somewhat more risky back then -- in terms of fatalities per mile traveled, if not fatalities per hour traveled -- but I don't think that's perfectly clear. A fall from a horse, which has happened to me more than once, is a lot less injurious than an automobile accident. It would be interesting to see a comparison table. Besides, the risks didn't stop every enterprising English and Protestant German youth from embarking upon the Grand Tour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
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- kunwon1 3y agoOne might argue that a fall from a horse in the 17th century is more injurious than an automobile accident in the 21st
- AlbertCory 3y agowe don't have much data for then, but we do have it for now. See my other comment.
- b112 3y agoA fall from a horse, with mild injury, was far more serious though. No antibiotics, and geneally no operating for internal body cavity injuries.
- bemusedthrow75 3y agos/enterprising/independently wealthy/
- AlbertCory 3y agoI don't have a dog in this fight, honest! /s but I got curious, so as a fun math exercise: go crazy! HORSES: https://horsesonly.com/horse-riding-accidents/ https://horsesonly.com/horse-riding-accidents/ > According to the research (2002) on horseback riding danger statistics, the rate of hospital admissions for equestrians is 11.8/1000 riders or, assuming one hour per day riding on average, 0.49/1000 hours of riding. (1) > 7. 81% of equestrians get injured at some point in their riding career. CARS: https://www.valuepenguin.com/car-accident-statistics#injuries https://www.valuepenguin.com/car-accident-statistics#injurie... we have some numbers that don't quite compare: >In 2020, Americans had a 1 in 63 chance of getting in a car accident. > At least one driver or passenger is injured in 43% of car crashes. There were 2,282,015 injuries reported in 2020 — that's 6,252 per day, or four per minute.
- thmsths 3y agoSo cars are roughly 10 times safer than riding horses? And that's without accounting for the difference in distance travelled. The number of injuries for the car are staggeringly high because of how common they are. I bet if we enacted policies that made owning a horse as likely as owning a car, we would also find that every minutes a several horse riders get injured.
- pixl97 3y agoI would also make a guess that cars operated at the same speed (with current safety equipment) that cars would be closer to 100 times safer than horses. The entire velocity squared multiples quickly.
- thmsths 3y agoI think so too. Motorcycles are the closest thing we have to a very fast horse and according to [1] they are 35 times more likely to result in a fatal crash than a car. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety
- hgomersall 3y ago
- nugget 3y agoI’m pretty sure the opioid epidemic is the leading cause of death in the US. Enormous numbers of Americans are dying from fentanyl and other poisons, but the media doesn’t like to cover it and the Government doesn’t like to talk about it.
- robotresearcher 3y agoAmong young people it is currently guns, until recently was cars, and drugs is about half of either, but rising. Drugs has recently risen to be about the same as cancer. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761#:~:text=The%20previous%20analysis%2C%20which%20examined,to%2019%20years%20of%20age https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2201761#:~:text=T....
- nradov 3y agoA lot has changed since 2016. "Poisoning was the leading cause of preventable death for all ages, combined, for the ninth consecutive year and was the leading cause of preventable death for every age from 22 to 68. This is largely due to the opioid epidemic affecting millions of people in the United States." https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demographics/deaths-by-age/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/deaths-by-demograph...
- robotresearcher 3y agoThe data I used was up to 2020 (see the chart) and your link says that for people under 22 the leading cause was vehicle accidents in 2021. But your point is made: drug poisonings are now the scourge of adults in the main years of life.
- refurb 3y agoI find it curious that the age cut off for that study was under 20 years of age. Why not 18 or under? That's what we've typically used as the cutoff between childhood and adulthood. I think I know why.
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- roughly 3y agoI wonder how much this generalizes across cultures. Early-modern Brits weren’t known for their hygiene, nutrition, or general medical aptitude.
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- Randomizer42 3y agoVery true, and let’s not forget inbreeding
- Balero 3y agoCompared to who? Modern day, of course they weren't. 1500's Britain was quite poor, but not more so than many other places. If you look at the general populace for basically anywhere before modern times, they all had bad hygiene nutrition and medial aptitude by modern standards. Looking at what the 0.1% could manage doesn't tell you much about a society.
- roughly 3y agoNot compared to present day, no, but most of the folks who interacted with Europeans at that time (including the natives in the Americas) commented on how sickly they looked and how badly they smelled. Nobody was springtime fresh, but early modern Brits were apparently notable even then.
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- ulizzle 3y agoPretty much everything could kill you back then. I’ve been ill for about a month now, so I’ve been reading a lot. I’m going to add the danger of wolves. There is a French account of how packs used to raid villages and this one knight in full armor fought a wolf for hours, and they wound up killing each other in combat. I don’t know if that’s true but apparently it was quite commonplace
- throwbadubadu 3y agoWolves fight in packs too, for hunting prey.. a single wolf sticking and fighting to death, and a knight with a sword in armor not managing to seriously wound it earlier? Tbh doesn't sound realistic at all, given also todays knowledge about the behaviour of wolves. They had also plenty of food and other opportunities back then. Given how fatal any injury can be any predator is taking on any unnecessary fight very carefully.
- vharuck 3y agoIt might have been a rabid wolf, which would explain the aggression. And the duration was probably exaggerated. If the fight lasted a while, like 10 minutes, then the knight could've died from exhaustion or heat stroke afterwards. If we assume "died in the fight" was also exaggerated, we could include blood loss that went untreated (everyone else was busy fleeing). If he died that night or the next day, then infections are possible killers.
- ulizzle 3y agoThat’s very plausible. Maybe he was a shit knight. But also there’s the man eating lions that somehow could dodge bullets. But plate armor has its own weaknesses, like a poor field of vision and all the weight slows you down. Likely died from blood loss like you said. I’m trying to find it, it was a project Gutenberg tome. I don’t know how I got into this rabbit hole but I’m still a little feverish so back at it again
- ulizzle 3y agoI don't think so either but I thought it was cool. But wolves were an ever-present danger in Europe, that's why they hunted them to extinction. Especially during plague times, plenty of carrion to scavenge and habituation makes them lose their fear of humans. Let me see if I can find the story, I was feverish yesterday so I didn't, but I can today. The behavior of wolves as we currently think of it has been influenced a lot by politically correct thought forms. "In France, historical records compiled by rural historian Jean-Marc Moriceau indicate that during the period 1362–1918, nearly 7,600 people were killed by wolves, of whom 4,600 were killed by nonrabid wolves."
- Anon4Now 3y agoIn Ben Franklin's autobiography, he described his journey from Philadelphia to Boston. It took two weeks by boat, traveling down the Delaware River and up the Atlantic coast. The shipped wrecked off the coast of Massachusetts, and he had to swim to shore. I guess the TSA lines don't seem so bad in comparison.
- pavlov 3y agoThe distance from Philadelphia to Boston is not much greater than Paris to Lyon which takes two hours by train today. If the US had reasonable train service, you’d get from central Philly to central Boston in the time it today takes just to get to the airport, go through security and board the plane.
- darkerside 3y agos/reasonable/world-class
- dredmorbius 3y agoAny particular reason why the country which prides itself as the world's largest economy, largest democracy, and a technological leader shouldn't reasonably have a world-class transportation system?
- NikkiA 3y agoBecause "we ain't number 1 by catering to poor people"
- dredmorbius 3y agoHigh-speed rail tends to be a premium service. In Europe, routes often cost more than equivalent air routes. Though for some, comfort, convenience, and environmental considerations trump costs.
- Lolaccount 3y agoHealth risks of travel in post-modern Britain. A nation awash with sewage and corrupt leaders leading to episodes of ill-health and death.
- md_ 3y agoI was struck while recently reading David Grann's "The Wager" by how little people understood scurvy at the time. Grann writes about how some doctors believed it to be a reaction of the body to being away from solid land for too long, and attempted a treatment by burying patients up to their necks in soil.