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Last weekend one of my gaming buddies and I were talking about surgery. I have surgery coming up this weekend and we were comparing notes. One thing we both realized was that both of us would have died before we were six if not for modern medicine. He had his appendix out at five. My life more or less depends on medication to keep my asthma under control. I’ve had several life-saving trips to the hospital due to severe attacks in my lifetime.
I’ve mused on this sort of thing before, but since we were about to play D&D in a fantasy setting my mind was on it again. In the medieval times people got married at ages that would scandalize us today. They began having sex at a young age, and continued to do so without birth control for their entire lives. Women cranked out babies at an alarming pace, yet the population remained flat. Run those numbers in your head and it becomes clear that people who lived to adulthood where a small minority of the total number of people born. Their lives were bleak, harsh, and filled with death. They died of things that are trivial to fix today.
I wouldn’t have made it. Asthma would have killed me. If that didn’t get me, the infection I had at 20 would have done the job.
My dad would have died six months before I was born.
My mother would have died a few years after I was born.
My friend wouldn’t have made it. He would have died of a burst appendix at five.
I think my brothers and my sister would have made it. (Ignoring the fact that two of them were born after my mother would have died.)
How about you? How long would you have lived in the middle ages? Ignore all the general risks – like typhoid or the plague or cholera – that everyone would have faced in general. Let’s assume you were lucky and missed those. (Unless by some chance you actually DID face one of them in your life.) Also ignore the fact that your deadly injury might have been caused by modern technology, like an auto accident. Just pretend you were trampled by a horse or something. So, given the injuries and illness you’ve faced in your life so far: Did you make it? Would you have survived to your current age?
I don’t want to go on the cart!
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I’m curious to see the responses on this one. If you like, post your results to your blog (I’ll link back) and pose the same question to your readers. If you don’t have a blog you could always use the comment gizmo below. I hear it works pretty good.
(ADDITIONAL: To answer goblinpaladin’s question below, yes. Let’s assume we didn’t die in a flood, or a famine, or get worked to death, or die in a war, or anything else like that. Let’s just go with what’s happened to us in our modern lives. For a lot of us, even that is enough to kill us.)
The tally so far:
| On The Cart | Pulling The Cart |
|---|---|
|
Shamus Young Oscagne ms_danson e_scapism101 Steven Den Beste Webs Nick Bogan Winged Ignorance Ingvar Remus BriScan Sir Sefirot RedHillian goblinpaladin Jag Dell talorina JohnW Rollie Erik Galenor Delta Force Leader SimeSublime Deathblade_penguin Gus Mari arlani Otus Mik VikingMonkey Rupert Gary Michael L Rich Dan Ariel Eltanin guy Tom Gunn Joel Gary Cradok BlueFaeMoon Doug Brown Anonymous Botch Kalle MintSkittle Downtym Tarous Zars Rob Jacob AJ Space Bumby DavidS Mr. Blue Ysabel Allura David H. JasonS Katy Poet Shadow Wolf Arson55 Jimmy Don wumpus Browncoat milw770 ZackTheSTGuy Doug Sundseth SiliconScout Al Billings lplimac Dangerous_Jade SteeleButterfly chuko Ken Talton dreamfarer Refugee Joe M Corsair (Don’t be such a baby!) Rhea Kevin Kurt MONKEEYYY xbolt Devin Mrs T DoveArrow coz beckyzoole Brett Matt` Siobharek trigear SteveDJ jpetoh stevend AnnMCN Smyth J Greely unseelie_sidhe M Hamann Nothing Davemonkey Chris Ralff Attorney At Chaos Yonder Sion Jewbacca Lanthanide Rixaxun phobiandarkmoon veloxyll luagha Woerlan Raved Thrad Chrystalline Sem Justin Alexander Kajen Ravs Mark Caliber the_corruptor Clint Memo AdaMM Zaxares Antendren Roses Jon Contagion Mrs. Who KMC Mandi corwin txknight indikate Matt J |
Knastymike Robin Z out_totheblack Spider Jimmie Telophase Melfina the Blue Rev.Dr.Blacky Thanatos Roach NRD80Y Alden Jennifer Snow phlux Robyrt Anh Minh Arthur Christopher Locri gomi no sensei (Pulling with gusto!) Hanov3r Marmot Redguy Katy Nathan M. Michael McHenry Ryan -Chipper Zak Falafel Jeremiah Jessie TwiddleStooch Martin Kevin Amanda Nilus Lars Matt P Segev Stormlord Janneh Joe leopardeternal quadir SongCoyote Althanis Alex Dan Morrison Skeeve the Impossible Alexis BlackJaw Dev Null Maia Vykromod Guy Karen John Myxx Deoxy Cenobite Cadamar dishuiguanyin Nanja Kang Osvaldo Mandias Jack of Spades Coyote Gobo icekatze brian Kristin Gothmog Dave Mark TooMad PurpleStarfish ravenkith Sewerman Mysterium rou Otters34 Sauron Jeremy Bowers ohnoabear Water_Singer CJG melchar Seracka Anna capitain Petrushka Julia Dave Klecha andy Clarifon rogue_stupidity kdorian Pilomotor Glumly lynnylchan wildweasel Pixy Misa jdhays Dix Rick Ben Masakados Purple Library Guy Daebereth Zaghadka Nefke James Hito Traiden Tolmar dragonbane Brian kat Paul Arthur Pffh Danzaemon |
A further thought: I should have made three columns for our list above: On the cart, Pulling the cart, and Beggars. A lot of so-called cart-pullers up there are missing limbs, very ill, blind, or otherwise not up to performing their cart-pulling duties.
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395. There are now n+1 comments, where n is a ridiculous number.
[...] Interesting survey: How about you? How long would you have lived in the middle ages? Ignore all the general risks – like typhoid or the plague or cholera – that everyone would have faced in general. Let’s assume you were lucky and missed those. (Unless by some chance you actually DID face one of them in your life.) Also ignore the fact that your deadly injury might have been caused by modern technology, like an auto accident. Just pretend you were trampled by a horse or something. So, given the injuries and illness you’ve faced in your life so far: Did you make it? Would you have survived to your current age? [...]
I don’t think I would have made it. There were complications with my birth, such as the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck. In addition, I became extremely ill shortly after birth. I think that alone would have done it.
If I had somehow survived through those, I think I would have survived. Breaking an arm and 6 and a leg at 8 would have probably left me a useless cripple, though. Couple that with poor eyesight, and… yep. Blind AND lame.
I nearly bit my tongue off when I was too young to remember. An oral surgeon had to repair it. If that wouldn’t have finished me off in the middle ages, I cut my thumb down to the bone in high school. I had to get a couple of stitches.
Theoretically, the could have cauterized my tounge and amputated my thumb. I’d be mute and short a major digit (on the non-primary hand, thankfully), but I’d probably be alive, maybe?
It’s even chances in my case. I would probably have died of the burn I got at age 4-or-so, but I’d probably not have had taht burn without the combination of thermos flasks and kitchen ladders.
Two words: testicular torsion. At best we’re talking eunuch.
Reposted.
My brother was born breech, or would have been if he hadn’t been delivered via c-section. So there’s a good chance my mother wouldn’t have survived to give birth do a second child (me). Assuming she did, I think I would have done OK. Never any major illnesses or injuries. A propensity for really bad ingrown toenails might have hobbled me, but my guess is that in those times you just suffered through it, or your feet would eventually just harden up. Surgery fixed mine.
Other than that I think I’d have been OK. 20/20 vision helps. I think a lot of people that are nearly blind would find life difficult in the middle ages. It makes you wonder how natural selection didn’t already weed out bad eyesight and a lot of these genetic disorders. Must be regressive traits, otherwise you’d think the dark ages would have straighted that out.
I’d have made it relatively unscathed – never been admitted to a hospital after birth, no serious illnesses – and probably even my allergy to mold would have been less pronounced in, say, southern France.
Comment about the whole “sex without birth control, pumping out babies”. Production of eggs varies with health. Women were far less healthy and often malnourished and hungry. This means that they would be having periods and producing eggs much more slowly. So rather than having babies every 9 months they might be “lucky” to have a baby every few years. It was probably the rich and nobility who were having most of the babies, taking in women as concubines and consorts and keeping them healthy, with many bastard children. The general populace no doubt did have many children, but they wouldn’t have been healthy enough to be a factory rolling over every 9 months.
MEDIEVAL EUNUCHS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!
I feel for you robin, i had a benign cyst on one of my testes, and from how i was describing the pain, they thought it was torsion.
Like a doc marten to the sack with every step i took. >_
Brandon: I agree. Not every 9 months. (Even healthy women don’t usually become fertile again until about the time they stop nursing.) But if she starts at 15 and keeps making babies until 40, and only has one every two years, that’s still 12 babies. For the population to remain flat, ten of them have to die.
Hard to say. There is no precise incident I can pinpoint and say “Yep, that’d have killed me”.
Complicated birth, but a competent physician might have been able to deal with it. (Then again, how much of the population had access to one?)
I had childhood diseases like everyone, but I don’t know if they’d have been fatal.
However, my health isn’t that good now, and my eyesight is very bad. (Probably made worse by modern stuff like late night reading and computers, though.)
hmmm, my attempt at an in-pain emoticon broke the comment box.
continued:
And if, in our hypothetical middle ages scenario, i didnt die of that, or an infection from doctors poking around in there, i’d probably have died of athsma.
I would have made it to six. I cracked my face open when I as a kid. I probably would have bled to death or it would have gotten infected.
Reposted – and put me on the deader cart: appendectomy at 6.
I’d have died during birth (taking my mother with me!).
I think in medieval times, it would have been even less socially acceptable for a man to leave the priesthood, and similarly for a woman to leave the convent. I would never have been born at all.
I would have been survived, my mother wouldn’t have – I was born by caesarian.
This a rather morbid discussion don’t you think? I’m alive, I think. Other than a few childhood injuries and illnesses, and with a little luck, I’d be pulling that cart.
I sometimes think about how awesome it would be to go back in time to the dark ages with a truckload (wagonload?) of science textbooks ranging from elementary to college.
Naturally I would bring back some modern weaponry also to protect myself from witchburners and High Inquisitors attempting to silence my blasphemy.
if successful I would be able to cure diseases, kickstart modern technology and avoid many of the early pitfalls like getting sucked into fossil fuels and whatnot.
Could the world absorb that pace of change? Would it overpopulate itself in a matter of decades? Would it deforest the planet attempting to house the masses? I think if you could control the population growth and avoid the guillatine you’d be OK and the world would avoid 800 years of science as heresy.
I wouldn’t have been able to be born at all – my mother fractured her pelvis aged 20, and all her children have thus had to be born by C-section.
But, assuming that I managed to be born (somehow), I’d be alive, but deaf. I had really bad ear infections as a child, including rupturing my eardrum twice. I had a minor greenstick fracture of my wrist when I was 8, but it would have healed up anyway. I also had a pretty visually impressive car accident last summer, but had no actual lasting injuries from that, although maybe that’s due to the anti-inflammatories they gave me in hospital; I really don’t know.
So, alive, but less well. Much less well. Oh, and kiss goodbye to my education, too.
Like you, barring the whole mother thing (my Mom had two close calls before I was born, the second one was a barn collapsing on her two weeks before I was due O_O) I would have survived.
I haven’t had any major health issues, the only thing I’d have to worry about is my eyesight… it’s not that good, but I could survive without glasses.
I’m not certain that I would be alive. First, there’s a chance that I would have died during birth (caesarian), and then at age 6 I had a quite serious bronquitis. Not life-menacing serious, but again, there were no antibiotics back then… So I guess I would be on the cart.
Hmm. Are we also assuming we are all members of the upper class, or at least wealthy middle-classers and can therefore afford some chap to set bones and so forth? The life of a ‘peasant’ is drastically shorter than that of a nobleman, if only because being worked to death is a good way to die younger. Also, women: are we ignoring the risks of childbirth?
Given all that, I’d probably be still alive (at 23). I’m short-sighted and prone to mental health issues, though, so unless I’m a member of the clergy or a banker’s son I may have been killed for being a useless git. I also had a greenstick fracture in my right arm as a child which may have impaired my physical abilities somewhat.
You may have been okay after all, Shamus. Asthma is in part an overreaction of the immune system when it doesn’t have enough to fight. Yours would have had plenty to fight back then.
Nothing that happened in my modern life would’ve killed me back then. I’ve never needed surgery and haven’t gone to the doctor for the bones I’ve broken. I have perfect vision, good tooth enamel, and a sturdy immune system. So I would have stood a chance at least.
I died in childbirth, killing my mother as well. That’s not a nice thought really.
I was born after complications via an emergency cesearean, then spent a while in an incubator.
Anything beyond that is moot, but I’d have most likely survived, although there’s been a couple of sets of antibiotics to clear infections in the last 30 years, any one of which could have done for me if it had got really bad, but not so likely.
Oh, wait, I forgot: I had a severe bacterial infection in my chest at 20. *snap* That probably would have killed me, or at least developed into pneumonia…which would have killed me. Or at least left me with weak lungs, and something *else* would’ve killed me.
I also had the cord wrapped around my neck at birth, which would have possibly killed me (it’s also possible that, in a community that’s used to assisting livestock give birth, something like that would have been dealt with via some deft handwork). Assuming I survived that, I’d likely still be alive – chicken pox at 9 and a couple of broken fingers and a broken nose (all at the age of 35 – those medieval combat sports will do you in!) are the worst that’s happened to me.
When I was about three I got stomach flu really bad and couldn’t keep anything down. As a result I got severely dehydrated and was nearly comotose.
I spent three days in the hospital on intravenous fluids. Without that I would have died.
Well, seconding Cristopher’s comment as a necessity (but it is still a subject we do have to face once, that I agree)…
My father is an engineer and my mother is a doctor, if that counts. I was born prematurely, about a bit less than a month early. This in itself is dangerous but not a certain death. For example, as said here…
“In the 1950s and 1960s, approximately half of all low birth weight babies in the US died. Today, more than 90% survive.”
- so – 30%? It might be dangerous, but it is a solid chance and not a wall like “roll initiative. you die”.
Seeing how I was born prematurely I suffered from undescended right testicle. This was “fixed” by a surgery.
“Undescended testicle – The condition affects approximately 30% of baby boys who are born prematurely and about 3% of newborn boys who are carried to term.
In about half of the cases, undescended testicles move down on their own by the baby’s first birthday. If this doesn’t happen, it’s important to get treatment because testicles that remain undescended can hurt the child’s fertility down the line.”
-> this one is not fatal, it just increases chance of infertility.
Later I was maybe sickly in general, but I never at all had any life threathening disease or close to it, never broke anything or suffered more than a moderate bruise, etc., and never had to take any medications more serious than a herbal tea with honey. So unless 70% chance of not getting through the early birth counts as fatal, I guess I’d be pulling the cart just fine.
Even after writing this I will be questioning my own honesty and fortitude after the conclusion. But it’s a thing we all have to come to grips with sometime in our lives. I am glad to be living today, that is all.
Pulling the cart. Guess that my minor epilepsy would make me beggar or village idiot, but not dead. Apart from that, I’m enjoying pretty good health.
I would have died of tetanos, got a small rock embedded in my chin after a nasty fall when I was 7.
Apart from that I’m healty as an Ox. No allergies and no Asthma. I would probably have made it pretty far up the life expectancy chart.
Me, dead of pneumonia at 4. My sister, dead of bronchitis at 10 months. That’s a 50% survival rate among me and my siblings.
I got chicken pox when I was three, but only because my mother decided that my older sister should “give it to me” since it’s easier to get over when you’re young, apparently. I doubt she would’ve let my sister anywhere near me if we were living in the medieval era. Barring that, I’ve never had any major illness or accident. I broke my wrist once, but that’s not life-threatening.
My mother probably would’ve died before I was born, but that assumes that tuberculosis was rampant in medieval times. I don’t *think* it was, so I’ll assume she didn’t catch it. My dad is like an ox, no worries there.
I’ll have to say, “Pulling the Cart!”
I was blind as a bat (thank you, LASIK). Don’t think I would have made it.
The ~50% child mortality rate is, imo, the best argument against some of the more luddite environmentalists.
Pulling the cart.
An uncomplicated birth, no major illnesses, and no surgeries (yet) as of 35…
I turned out to be a really healthy guy, and probably would have lived, but so many mundane things can be deadly.
My tooth enamel is incredibly ineffective. With modern dental hygene, I still had a root canal at 14 and many many other cavities. I’m sure it wasn’t uncommon to die from an abcess.
When I was 29, I had a prostate infection(bacterial) and the flu(viral) at the same time. Even with antibiotics, that experience completely redefined my concept of hell. I might have survived that, but I don’t want to imagine how much worse that could have been.
And, I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 7. And – possilby most dangerously – I’m hard wired to reject authority and convention.
I’d have possibly died at 19 of an infected pilonidal cyst. I supposed I’ll just hedge my bet and say “on the cart”.
I suffered from severe asthma when I was very young, so that would put me on the cart. If gomi no sensei is right, though, that asthma would not have been such a problem in the middle ages, then I might well have lived– easy birth, never broken a bone or had anything worse than a cold in the head.
Being a medievalist at heart, I’ve thought about this kind of thing quite a bit over the years.
I’ve never had any major illnesses. I’ve never had any broken bones (or the like) that could have led to an infection.
I joke that my Constitution score must be around 16 or 17.
Actually, despite the danger, living then would have been a good way of keeping my weight at a fit level!
I had a severe laceration to my thigh when I was ~10 (12 stitches), but provided I survived any infection, I guess I’d still be here. So what are the chances? Roll a d20 & let’s see!
I’d have been just fine. However, I’d have had teeth like the rest of them brits! That’d probably be the only real downside to growing up in the 15th/16th centuries for me.
Interesting topic sir!
I would be alive, but for no good reason.
I was allergic to milk as a kid, and my allergic reaction was blockage in my ears until I was deaf. I had tubes in them twice.
Also, I have horrid eyesight. My first doctor told me that I would be blind by the time I was 16. Thanks to some (apparently experimental) treatment, I am not blind and am fully functional.
In the middle ages I would have been blind and deaf by the time I was supposed to get married. I would either have been a complete drain of resources or left on a cliff to wander off.
I woulda copped it at about 14 – something got stuck in my appendix and was causing appendicitus, it woulda blown if it werent for the level of medicine we have today! Makes you appreciative of what we have in our scale of medicinal to a certain degree. :)
Well I would have been a goner. As it is today I almost died when I was about 3 weeks old. Modern medicine barely saved me. Would I have survived in the Middle Ages…NOT A CHANCE!
I’d definitely be on the cart. I turned blue 8 hours after birth, and had had open heart surgery twice before my first birthday. Huzzah for modern medicine.
I have never been to a hospital in my life, but then again I haven’t even reached the venerable age of twenty yet, so who knows what would happen if I live longer than that.
I, like many others, would have probably died with the old appendicities. It hit me so hard when i was 15/16.. that it actually burst whilst the surgeon was removing it on the table. I wonder what percentage of the population got taken away with that sort of thing.
Plus as a child, I seemed to catch illness very easily and suffered from all the childhood ones..
put me on the cart, Shamus.
Appendicitis at 8. Turned so septic that even with modern medicine (in the early 80’s) I lost part of a kidney.
I’m pretty sure I’d be alright. I’ve had a few ingrown tonails in my life, but to be fair they usually came about from me clipping at my nails too much with clippers, so that probably wouldn’t have happened. I dislocated my knee once, but I can’t imagine relocating it would’ve been too much for a doctor back then (if so, i guess amputation could have been an option). Only longterm illnesses I’e had are chicken pox and mono.
Hard to say.
I was a breech birth, and they were going to do a C-section, but I was too fast for the doctors.
Ran into a window when I was two or so, and needed stitches on my eyebrow, but it’s doubtful that would have been fatal.
Possibly tetanus, though. Almost took the tip of my finger off about a year and a half ago–I damaged the nerves and I still don’t have full feeling in it, possibly never will. Sliced through the meaty part of the pad but didn’t quite go all the way through, so the doctor just folded it back over and taped it shut to heal. Mind you, I may not have got tetanus, and if I’d avoided other infection I probably would have been all right, though my finger would be more of a mess than it is now.
Had some problems with asthma when I was younger. I seem to have grown out of it, or my lungs are stronger, or something. Dunno what that’s about. Still might not have died; it was never very severe, compared to some people.
My superpower is the ability to avoid serious injury. I can think of several times in my life where, if there were any justice, I should have been hurt badly, but somehow managed to not be. I don’t get it.
Of course, I’m also something like 20/200 without my glasses, and without them, it’s entirely possible I would have receieved a serious injury due to that.
My next-oldest sister definitely would not have made it. She would have died before her first birthday. Failure to thrive, as they say. The doctors never knew why, and she almost died anyway before they managed to get her to start gaining weight after being on an IV for ages. My father talks, sometimes, about how very small she was when they finally released her from the hospital; she looked about half her age.