Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dartvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!dartvax!betsy From: betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) Newsgroups: net.med Subject: Re: While my catarrh gently weeps Message-ID: <3448@dartvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 12:58:22 EDT Article-I.D.: dartvax.3448 Posted: Thu Aug 8 12:58:22 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 01:15:29 EDT References: <59@drutx.UUCP> Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 33 > > > >I have tried to make it a point that people survived well before 20th century > >meidicine. > > > > I have a project for you if you really believe this. Go into any > old cemetery. Then start looking at the family plots. Do you know > what you will see? Whole families wiped out. Especially children. > 5, 6, 7 or more children taken by typhoid, diptheria or whooping > cough at a time. Carvings expressing sorrow at losing "our sweet > girl" at the age of 13 from "a fever". Ayup. Here at Dartmouth, the college cemetary is near the heart of campus. There's a section of it devoted to students (after all, before 'modern' embalming and transportation, they tended to bury you where you fell!). One poor family, around 1810, sent four sons to Dartmouth and lost all of them to tuberculosis. TB and drowning were the major causes of death in that section of the cemetery. I'm not claiming that the AMA has cured drowning, but I certainly don't hear of many cases of fatal consumption nowadays. It is naive at best to think that most people were healthier before the advent of modern medical methods. Your grandfather undoubtedly was a tough old coot; simply surviving past childhood was an accomplishment not too long ago. He likely survived *in spite* of the current medical practices, not *because* of them. -- Elizabeth Hanes Perry UUCP: {decvax |ihnp4 | linus| cornell}!dartvax!betsy CSNET: betsy@dartmouth ARPA: betsy%dartmouth@csnet-relay "Ooh, ick!" -- Penfold