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Maybe this is an interesting article in this context: „They Were Labeled Witches. They Just Had Dementia“, https://narratively.com/they-were-labeled-witches-th

Maybe this is an interesting article in this context: „They Were Labeled Witches. They Just Had Dementia“, https://narratively.com/they-were-labeled-witches-they-just-had-dementia/ https://narratively.com/they-were-labeled-witches-they-just-... Discussed in 2021: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27343868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27343868 This might be interesting because here people with dementia were not classified as suffering from cognitive impairment but as witches. It went as far as considering dementia purely a white people disease that didn’t occur in Africa. Maybe the Greeks and Romans did similar mistakes (e.g. treating them as seers, oracles or such)?

readthenotes1 3y ago
Or maybe the people with dementia died off early in the cycle before it became pronounced enough for other people to truly notice and remark on it. Life is much safer nowadays and we tend to forget all the guardrails we have up for everyone
- kcplate 3y ago
  Honestly this seems to me to be much more likely a reason than industrial society environmental factors. My father was in his early 80s before he could no longer “fake away” the mental decline he was experiencing due to Alzheimer’s. At 86 and moving into stage 7 of the disease. I have to think people reaching that advanced an age was relatively rare in pre industrial times, coupled with the fact that today Alzheimer’s affects only about 10% at age 65. You would need a large population reaching that age and beyond to the later stages where the disease becomes problematic before it would become noticeable in a society.
  - ComputerGuru 3y ago
    This complete fallacy that "people didn't live that long" can't die soon enough. Mortality numbers are horribly skewed by high birth and infancy mortality rates and a spike for military-aged individuals, but people that made it to forty didn't wait to turn fifty then keel over and die.
    - quartesixte 3y ago
      True but certain traditional cultural events and norms seem to point to lifespans being much shorter than we generally experience them now to be. 60 - 70 seemed to be the upper ceiling for a very long time.
      - bsder 3y ago
        Not really. Ben Franklin died at 84, for example. Jefferson died at 83. Being poor, however, has always sucked. Being wealthy always meant you lived longer. The difference is that wealth concentration was much more strongly localized and concentrated in the past. And the famous people, who you have heard of, were generally the more wealthy people.
        jjk166 3y ago
        And both were noted for being exceptional outliers. The average lifespan of a signer of the declaration of independence was 66.
    - poulpy123 3y ago
      that's true but it is very probable that people with these kind of disease were dying much earlier than nowaday also
    - jjk166 3y ago
      The "mortality was skewed by infant mortality" myth can't die soon enough. Yes the life expectancy being 35 didn't mean everyone died at 35, but your mortality at any given age was substantially higher than today. Whereas today living into your 70s is nearly a given and people have decent odds of remaining healthy into their 80s, in the past living to such ages was exceptional. Of course it happened on occasion, but if you look at the ages people actually died of natural causes, it was typically between 50 and 65. Even when people were noted for their incredibly long life, it was still rather short compared to today. Louis XIV, for example, was the longest reigning european monarch of all time, living to the ripe old age of 76, outliving his son (who died at 49) and grandson (dead at 29), to be succeeded by his great grandson who would live to be 64. The modern life expectancy in France is 82.
wyldfire 3y ago
It seems odd to me that they would describe folks with impairments like dementia as witches or oracles. Do dementia patients make prognostications along with their problems with memory, incontinence, temper? But I suppose if the dementia appears as an acquired condition then having some ominous description for the victim would help avoid the spread of whatever contamination or infection that could have been an explanation.

readthenotes1 3y ago

Or maybe the people with dementia died off early in the cycle before it became pronounced enough for other people to truly notice and remark on it. Life is much safer nowadays and we tend to forget all the guardrails we have up for everyone

kcplate 3y ago
Honestly this seems to me to be much more likely a reason than industrial society environmental factors. My father was in his early 80s before he could no longer “fake away” the mental decline he was experiencing due to Alzheimer’s. At 86 and moving into stage 7 of the disease. I have to think people reaching that advanced an age was relatively rare in pre industrial times, coupled with the fact that today Alzheimer’s affects only about 10% at age 65. You would need a large population reaching that age and beyond to the later stages where the disease becomes problematic before it would become noticeable in a society.
- ComputerGuru 3y ago
  This complete fallacy that "people didn't live that long" can't die soon enough. Mortality numbers are horribly skewed by high birth and infancy mortality rates and a spike for military-aged individuals, but people that made it to forty didn't wait to turn fifty then keel over and die.
  - quartesixte 3y ago
    True but certain traditional cultural events and norms seem to point to lifespans being much shorter than we generally experience them now to be. 60 - 70 seemed to be the upper ceiling for a very long time.
    - bsder 3y ago
      Not really. Ben Franklin died at 84, for example. Jefferson died at 83. Being poor, however, has always sucked. Being wealthy always meant you lived longer. The difference is that wealth concentration was much more strongly localized and concentrated in the past. And the famous people, who you have heard of, were generally the more wealthy people.
      - jjk166 3y ago
        And both were noted for being exceptional outliers. The average lifespan of a signer of the declaration of independence was 66.
  - poulpy123 3y ago
    that's true but it is very probable that people with these kind of disease were dying much earlier than nowaday also
  - jjk166 3y ago
    The "mortality was skewed by infant mortality" myth can't die soon enough. Yes the life expectancy being 35 didn't mean everyone died at 35, but your mortality at any given age was substantially higher than today. Whereas today living into your 70s is nearly a given and people have decent odds of remaining healthy into their 80s, in the past living to such ages was exceptional. Of course it happened on occasion, but if you look at the ages people actually died of natural causes, it was typically between 50 and 65. Even when people were noted for their incredibly long life, it was still rather short compared to today. Louis XIV, for example, was the longest reigning european monarch of all time, living to the ripe old age of 76, outliving his son (who died at 49) and grandson (dead at 29), to be succeeded by his great grandson who would live to be 64. The modern life expectancy in France is 82.

wyldfire 3y ago

It seems odd to me that they would describe folks with impairments like dementia as witches or oracles. Do dementia patients make prognostications along with their problems with memory, incontinence, temper? But I suppose if the dementia appears as an acquired condition then having some ominous description for the victim would help avoid the spread of whatever contamination or infection that could have been an explanation.