27 minutes ago, CharonY said:

"normal" child mortality is around 50% and things only started to change around 200 years ago. I.

With things like this helping.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

54 minutes ago, m_m said:

swansont, yes, you've done a lot. But people of that ages lived as they lived. They had their instruments, they didn't have all this modern equipment.

They also struggled to find innovations, made mistakes, they left their inheritance for us. What if your descendants forget things you do?

What does this have to do with anything?

1 hour ago, pinball1970 said:

With things like this helping.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Absolutely- I forgot where I read it, but I believe that in the 1800s child mortality at birth was higher in urban centres (in rural areas, midwives were doing the work) and the hygiene findings after Semmelweis cut those down markedly.

31 minutes ago, swansont said:

What does this have to do with anything?

Well, this is my subjective answer to a question from the OP. People didn't have medicine to treat diseases. Today there are also diseases which can not be treated. And in the Middle Ages people also had long lives, despite "bad hygiene."

29 minutes ago, m_m said:

Well, this is my subjective answer to a question from the OP. People didn't have medicine to treat diseases. Today there are also diseases which can not be treated. And in the Middle Ages people also had long lives, despite "bad hygiene."

The OP was about the high death rate in infancy and childhood. So your observation, apart from being wrong anyway, is irrelevant.

22 minutes ago, m_m said:

Well, this is my subjective answer to a question from the OP. People didn't have medicine to treat diseases.

A point which a number of people have already made

22 minutes ago, m_m said:

Today there are also diseases which can not be treated.

Yup. But most are, and they tend to be ones that strike when you’re older. You have the opportunity to catch them because you didn’t have half of the population dying of infectious diseases or malnutrition, etc. when they were kids.

22 minutes ago, m_m said:

And in the Middle Ages people also had long lives, despite "bad hygiene."

Absolutely nobody has said otherwise.

Here’s a little math problem: Each family has 4 kids. One dies at 1, another at 4. One lives to 55, the other to 60. What’s the life expectancy? As I hope you can conclude, that number can in no way suggest that nobody lives to 50 or beyond.

7 minutes ago, swansont said:

Yup. But most are, and they tend to be ones that strike when you’re older. You have the opportunity to catch them because you didn’t have half of the population dying of infectious diseases or malnutrition, etc. when they were kids.

And just to reinforce a point made earlier- besides antibiotics, vaccines are probably the single largest contribution to population health. Treatments may or may not work, but they certainly do not prevent spread of infectious diseases and even if treated, they can still lead to significant health burdens. Vaccines on the other hand lower the overall risk of adverse health outcomes.

Even just considering the last 50 years, where infant mortality has been cut down massively, vaccines have saved the lives in the order of 140 million children (each resulting on an average of 66 life years gained).

Humans in small dispersed bands had somewhat lower IM, then more concentrated habitation raised IM, then implementation of the germ theory (Lister, Semmelweis, et al) along with more hygienic city infrastructure and vaccines brought IM back down and then lower. Netting was also a major player in the warmer climes (still is).

Part of the city crowding problem was also less exposure to the barnyard pathogen landscape and its immune boosting effects earlier in life.

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Part of the city crowding problem was also less exposure to the barnyard pathogen landscape and its immune boosting effects earlier in life.

I think that is somewhat more speculative or at least I have seen any particularly convincing data to this effect. What is known however is that many urban (but also some rural areas, later during industrialization) were heavily exposed to e.g. air, heavy metal and other pollution. These factors are known to adversely affect child development.

There’s the cowpox — smallpox connection (though the milkmaid story is apparently just a story)

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/02/01/582370199/whats-the-real-story-about-the-milkmaid-and-the-smallpox-vaccine

Oh there are absolutely cases where certain exposures in farming contexts can provide some form of immunity, especially to zoonotic diseases (though conversely, there is also a somewhat higher risk for agricultural workers to get sick). But I think TheVat might have been referring to the so-called Hygiene hypothesis (not to be confused with Semmelweis' hand hygiene concept). There, the idea is that childhood exposure is boosting the immune system provide overall better immune responses later in life.

This is somewhat less well grounded. There is some potential link to things like autoimmune disease and allergies (especially asthma), but regarding net infections the jury is very much still out (at least to my knowledge).

The main potential mechanism is low-level exposure to certain pathogens which then either provide immunity and/or cross-immunity. But for the most part it seems that with few specific exceptions, there really is no broad immunity to be gained from agricultural lifestyles and especially in poorer countries the above balance (protection against vs acquiring zoonotic diseases) seems to point to a higher, rather than a lower incidence of zoonotic infections.

Infant mortality back then was higher due to points in the posts already mentioned.

Disease was attributed to "bad air" maisma and even things like curses and spells.

Ignorance of the world around them and poor hygiene have been cited however, I like this story of a 17th C village in Eyam, that deduced infected cloth from London began a deadly outbreak.

They isolated from the outside and also introduced social distancing in the village.

The obviously had no knowledge of microbiology, fomites, vectors but took a scientific approach.

One to visit on my travels.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyam

Just now, pinball1970 said:

Ignorance of the world around them and poor hygiene have been cited however, I like this story of a 17th C village in Eyam, that deduced infected cloth from London began a deadly outbreak.

The mediaeval period di not extend into the 17 cent as far as I am aware.

Did you look at the analysis I posted describing how many mediaeval villages were abandonded following the plague ?

2 hours ago, studiot said:

The mediaeval period di not extend into the 17 cent as far as I am aware.

Did you look at the analysis I posted describing how many mediaeval villages were abandonded following the plague ?

No it finished in the 15th and my link was to the 17th.

Your article mentioned the 1800s I checked it briefly. I will read all of it later.

4 minutes ago, pinball1970 said:

No it finished in the 15th and my link was to the 17th.

Your article mentioned the 1800s I checked it briefly. I will read all of it later.

Balance is the key...

On 8/1/2025 at 2:09 PM, dimreepr said:

Balance is the key...

A little more please?

It is not just the Middle Ages.

In ancient Egypt they did not live long.

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2015/03/02/old-age-in-ancient-egypt/

People in ancient Egypt did not grow very old. Very high infant death rates due to high risks of infections resulted in an average age at death of 19 years. However those who survived childhood had a life expectancy of 30 years for women* and 34 years for men. Most ancient Egyptians were unlikely to live beyond 40 years of age

example, King Tutankhamun died at the age of about 18 years

Edited August 2Aug 2 by Moon99

43 minutes ago, Moon99 said:

It is not just the Middle Ages.

In ancient Egypt they did not live long.

https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/researchers-in-museums/2015/03/02/old-age-in-ancient-egypt/

People in ancient Egypt did not grow very old. Very high infant death rates due to high risks of infections resulted in an average age at death of 19 years. However those who survived childhood had a life expectancy of 30 years for women* and 34 years for men. Most ancient Egyptians were unlikely to live beyond 40 years of age

example, King Tutankhamun died at the age of about 18 years

Your point?

Is there some reason to think that the absence of modern medicine, and problems of hygiene and nutrition would have a different impact?

3 hours ago, swansont said:

Your point?

Is there some reason to think that the absence of modern medicine, and problems of hygiene and nutrition would have a different impact?

What where the virus and bacteria back than killing so many people and babies?

6 minutes ago, Moon99 said:

What where the virus and bacteria back than killing so many people and babies?

They were the same ones we have now, minus a few that have been eradicated that originally decimated many such as smallpox

Let me repeat what multiple people have been saying, it’s the fact that they did not have proper sanitation methods, vaccinations, modern medicine etc

On 8/1/2025 at 2:02 PM, pinball1970 said:

No it finished in the 15th and my link was to the 17th.

Your article mentioned the 1800s I checked it briefly. I will read all of it later.

I couldn't quickly find any graphs going further back.

But I did post information relevant to the dates in a subsequent post.

9 hours ago, Moon99 said:

It is not just the Middle Ages.

In ancient Egypt they did not live long.

You made quite a specific quesiton and are now wandering around in both space and time.

The 'Middle Ages' was a particular time period in European history, it did not occur anywhere else.

Egypt at the same time was under the control of the growing Moslem empire and, like ancient Egypt quite different.

One particular feature of the European middle ages is relevant to you question.

At that time people were much more dispersed, there were almost no large cities.

In the country people lived in houses that were two story high.

The ground floor was used, especially in winter, to house livestock.

People lived on the first floor above the animals, using the rising heat to warm the upper floor in winter.

This close proximity must have led to the poor hygene referred to elsewhere.

In England parish records go back this far so fair estimates of the ages at death can be made; many cemetaries have gravestones for children remaining to this day.

19 hours ago, pinball1970 said:

A little more please?

When the infant mortality rate is high, then so is the birthrate, the antipode has been shown to be true in our modern era.

The question is, which is healthier for humanity?

20 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

The question is, which is healthier for humanity?

Neither, high IM is obviously not healthy and Evolution solved high birth rate with starvation historically.

That said the human species has done well, let's see if we can manipulate the resources we have better to children are not dying everyday of preventable diseases, on that note we need to do better.

Edit again: it was an addendum not an edit, I added the second paragraph.

12 hours ago, Moon99 said:

What where the virus and bacteria back than killing so many people and babies?

Are you reading the replies?

Edited August 3Aug 3 by pinball1970
I needed to change what I said, you can judge if you still have the original

13 hours ago, Moon99 said:

What where the virus and bacteria back than killing so many people and babies?

Largely the same ones we have around us today, though we have eliminated a handful of them, e.g. smallpox.

This explanation and maps of the current situation explain why modern medicine is important and why the plague was so devasting to the Roman empire and in the Middle ages.

Plague

About Plague

Plague is a disease that affects humans and other mammals, caused by the bacterium, <em>Yersinia pestis</em>.

Plague

Maps and Statistics

Human plague still occurs in the western US, with most cases in northern New Mexico and Arizona.