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Life expectancy at birth before medical breakthroughs (1900): ~41 years Life expectancy at birth before the WWW started (1989): ~71 years Life expectancy now:

by WA 3y ago

Life expectancy at birth before medical breakthroughs (1900): ~41 years Life expectancy at birth before the WWW started (1989): ~71 years Life expectancy now: ~75 years Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy

pc86 3y ago
This seems to imply that most people would die in their 40s from one cause or another before the 20th century, which is patently untrue. This is entirely from infant and childhood illnesses. If you made into grade school in the 1800s you were nearly as likely to live into your 70s as you are 200 years later. > ‘… life expectancy in the mid-Victorian period was not markedly different from what it is today. Once infant mortality is stripped out, life expectancy at 5 years was 75 for men and 73 for women.’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/ It seems the only real change modern medicine has had with regard to life expectancy is maternal mortality (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/table/tbl2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/table/t... from the same article)
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  Yes, but a big progress nevertheless. Life expectancy at 20 was also substantially different to today for males (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde..., second graph) However, that is still a world with a lot medicine in there (just take simple things like sutures, inoculations, or setting broken bones). Very difficult to say what life expectancy for adults would have been with zero medicine in the world.

4 ms·

Life expectancy at birth before medical breakthroughs (1900): ~41 years Life expectancy at birth before the WWW started (1989): ~71 years Life expectancy now:

by WA 3y ago

pc86 3y ago
This seems to imply that most people would die in their 40s from one cause or another before the 20th century, which is patently untrue. This is entirely from infant and childhood illnesses. If you made into grade school in the 1800s you were nearly as likely to live into your 70s as you are 200 years later. > ‘… life expectancy in the mid-Victorian period was not markedly different from what it is today. Once infant mortality is stripped out, life expectancy at 5 years was 75 for men and 73 for women.’ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/ It seems the only real change modern medicine has had with regard to life expectancy is maternal mortality (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/table/tbl2/?report=objectonly https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/table/t... from the same article)
- RandomLensman 3y ago
  Yes, but a big progress nevertheless. Life expectancy at 20 was also substantially different to today for males (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/articles/howhaslifeexpectancychangedovertime/2015-09-09 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde..., second graph) However, that is still a world with a lot medicine in there (just take simple things like sutures, inoculations, or setting broken bones). Very difficult to say what life expectancy for adults would have been with zero medicine in the world.