There are harshness too, there was disease and not the medications out there like there is now. And doctors, usually one doctor that travelled hundreds of miles and if not there and out on a call, you had to wait or do what you could.

My friend told me her grandmothers baby died by freezing as you had to keep getting up and putting wood on but you have to have wood or chips you collected from animals,etc. to burn and food they didn't bring enough crops to have money to buy things like flours,etc. to make those breads and other items they ate, then they did without and those gardens they grew were huge necessity, their foods for the winter and the slaughters of animals too for their meats,etc. for the winter. They got caught in blizzards,etc. and they didn't have clothing like they do nowadays to keep warm in. It was a very hard life to live.

And women if they lost their husbands, then many had to marry a relative or whoever to survive and help with their kids.

Kids walked long distances to their one room schools and teachers could be very harsh on them.

And today is not all pleasure, we have tons that still die and babies too that are born.

Too much over eating and all that causes problems on our bodies and health.

And all those chemicals pumped into our bodies from foods, from the environments and what about all those cleaning items you spray and put into everything and breath it all in animals and humans.

Cancer is uprise for humans and animals due to the environment that is doing us in.

Same with how about all the syndrome and chromosones disorders too, MS,etc. all part of what they are doing to us. Killing us but by the very expensive drugs the drug companies have and you read on those medications and they do you in too with all the side effects and take this but what you have the side effects are part of that health issue you have and you are like what you trying to kill me even earlier.

kathy

Yes, it is true that on the average, we are living longer and that may be a factor in the uptick of age related diseases such as dementia. In the past, the population did not live long enough to encounter age related diseases. As our lives increased, it stands to reason that age related disorders would also increase. For life increase to be meaningful, it must be accompanied with increased old age health as well.

A poster above points out that in yesteryear, life was harder an filled with more exercise than we get today. One factor not mentioned of shorter life back then was sanitation, the lack thereof. Many of us pumped well water and an equal number drank from cisterns. Very few, if any, of these sources were tested for harmful products; In fact, many of the harmful items were yet to be identified as such. For example, cisterns were usually filled by rain water taken from the roofs of the house and nearby sheds. Dust, dirt, and bird droppings could have been flushed into the cistern. There was another hazard: Roof flashings and valleys. If lead sheets had been used, then lead could leach into the cistern. Some roof installations contained strips of copper sheets to deter moss and lichen from attacking the roof. The copper may have developed a greenish color by reacting with air borne sulfur. One source of sulfur came from coal. Copper sulfate kills moss and lichen and is not good to humans too.

The well in the side yard may not have been as clean as thought. If it was alongside the barnyard, surface water from the barnyard may have seeped into the well. In latyer years, fertilizer products did invade a few wells. Most dug wells did not go as deep as a drilled well and was not cased. Typically, it was about 60 ft deep and the walls were brick lined with no mortar. The purpose of the brick was to keep the walls from collapsing. This type of well is subject to surface water.

Infectious diseases were another killer, TB for example. In 1940, I recall seeing a couple of people with goiter. After the introduction of iodized salt, goiter became rare.

During the Civil War, dysentery, small pox, and other common infections were a major killer in prison camps. Dysentery was a sanitation problem.

Back then, some women just plain wore out. Pregnant time and again. Many babies not making it to their first or fifth birthday. Complications of childbirth.

Today when a woman has a baby, she expects that baby to survive and grow up in her home, and she is usually right. Not that many years ago, that was not something a realistic woman could expect.

As a former cemetery sexton for 15-years (earliest burial recorded 1874), and a few decades of research in the world of genealogy, a lot has to do with plain old genetics - despite hard labor or disease.

Some of the more common and interesting c.o.d. (cause of death) I've encountered:

-child, who swallowed a 6-penny nail

-man killed while blasting out tree stumps

-man in a buggy killed by train while crossing the tracks when horse spooked

-man kicked by a horse 1899, age 56 (his wife lived to be 102).

-heatstroke in 1934 - which was also the hottest year globally on record, and heatstroke was a common c.o.d. in the summer around here for farmers and farm workers

-child birth for women. In a cemetery with around 700 burials, there are many instances where one twin didn't survive birth, and most births were not attended by a physician up until after WWII. Stillborn births were common, as well as premature twins where one or both did not survive.

-insufficiency - which could be a plethora of things: adrenal, aortic, coronary, placental, pulmonary, respiratory, thyroid, venous....

-consumption (which was tuberculosis) There was a family with 4 young women who all died from consumption. 1878, 1883, 1887, 1888

-murdered (newspaper quote, "Shot in North End")

-renal disease, congestive heart failure, pneumonia (which is a common way the elderly and very young died pre-antibiotics), hemorrhage (often from farm-related accidents), coronary occlusion, senility, angina pectoris, cerebral hemorrhage, Bright's Disease, blood clots, exhaustion (which was also "delirious mania"), uremia, toxemia, heart failure, intestinal obstruction, myocarditis, diphtheria, cancer (often of the mouth or throat - probably from tobacco use), injuries from a fall, medullary paralysis, chronic myocarditis, coronary embolism, "softening" of the brain (not sure what that is), drowning (several of those), old age, malnutrition, hypothermia, meningitis, malignant melanoma (often farmers)...

-Grainlady

Yes, there are many reasons we live longer now, but I'm still wondering about the 'bodies worn out' factor.

When Social Security was introduced, benefits began at 65. The thinking was that by that age many people were unable to do the hard labor required to earn a living. It was also expected that these people would only need supplementary income for the 'few years they had left'. (While everyone has a story about some family members who lived to 100 back when, it was more common for people to die much earlier.)

I think there may be a correlation between the hard labor required of the majority of the population then and the small amount of labor expended by the majority today. There was no 'retirement' for most people. You *labored* until you physically couldn't do the work. Then you only survived longer if some family member could afford to support you.

Grainlady, that's very interesting.

The biggest reason why people live longer now than years ago is because of advances in medical sciences and public health. Most of the things on the long list above can today be prevented, diagnosed for treatment before problems develop or treated after symptoms are present. Not too long ago, nothing could be done for many of these conditions and the patient would become very ill and/or simply die.

As recently as the late 1800s, there were large parts of the country where diseases like yellow fever, malaria, typhoid fever, etc., were present. Cities had repeated cholera problems. The causes of these serious and recurring health problems weren't known and little could be done for treatment when people got sick. People often died from things we today consider trivial, like an infected finger cut, for which there were no treatments before antibiotics were discovered.

Let me ask this another way.

In the US and other First World nations, whose bodies 'wear out' today? Athletes? Miners? Itinerant laborers? (Not counting mainstream citizens who don't abuse their bodies with drugs.)

Years ago I watched a show on the History channel. It lasted several weeks and it focused on 3 families who opted to live like the settlers did in the 1800's. I remember one family in particular; he was in computers/internet in California and lived in a huge house.

His wife had a real hard time adjusting; she was very upset when they took her makeup bag away from her, she couldn't live without mascara.

They had to chop enough wood to last them all winter; plant crops using horses, bake bread daily using a wood stove. I was hooked on the series.

What struck me was when they interviewed them when the show was over. She hugged her front-load washer and dryer; and he was sitting outside overlooking the city. He was depressed; he felt that something was missing in his life. He was in the best shape he'd ever been and that whole experience gave him a purpose.

I've never been able to find it to watch it again. I would dearly love to see where they are now.

I would also like to point out how infant and early childhood mortality also plays into the factor.

Infant and early childhood mortality dropped dramatically with the advent of refrigeration (both ice boxes and gas-/electric-powered refrigerators) and it was the advent of safer food. Where a healthy adult would usually recover from tainted food, an infant/young child would easily die from dehydration from. I'm sure this has improved the overall numbers over the years. With fewer young children dying from food poisoning, and more of them growing to be adults, this could be a huge factor in the "average" life span.

Other common causes of death for children were pneumonia, influenza, cancer, and birth defects, and for the most part, now successfully treated thanks to advances in medicine. The last infant I can personally recall dying was that of an acquaintance about 20-years ago who became a vegan while pregnant with twins. One of the twins did not thrive, and soon after birth died of malnutrition due to the mother's diet and lack of consuming quality protein while she was pregnant, and she wasn't able to supply enough breast milk for both babies.

When we lived in a predominately agrarian society, young children often died from unintentional farm-related injuries. So once again, as we moved from the country to the cities, and there were fewer families needed to feed the nation, and more needed in the cities due to the industrial age, there were more children becoming adults than ever before. These are just a few more reasons....

-Grainlady

Refrigeration? I wonder where you got this and other bits of the "information" you offer? Most infants and young children in the days of yesteryear were breastfed.

Mortality rates for mothers and newborns were reduced considerably in the mid 1800s when a doctor in Vienna discovered that infections, sometimes lethal ones, were transmitted by the failure of the delivery care providers (whether doctor, nurse, midwife, etc) to wash or better yet disinfect their hands. Also affecting infant mortality rates was the same lack of medical knowledge, which today has made yesterday's serious afflictions just other matters that can often be effectively treated.

Including, I agree, immunizations that have reduced the death toll of many formerly common childhood diseases.

Years ago I saw a quilt show on PBS; the hostess was Ellie Something.

On this episode, she was re-creating antique quilts, & at the end of the program, she read from a letter sent by a pioneer woman to her sister back east.

Part of it read:

"The baby died. Mama always told me that if I wanted to raise four, I'd have to bear eight."

Sorry for the sidetrack, chisue.

Seems to me that there aren't as many jobs requiring heavy manual labor these days. Machines can do many tasks with less human physical effort than if done manually and often with more safety. I wonder if the light physical household tasks you cite were more helpful (activity and exercise) than harmful, health wise? Job safety is also given much more attention, in many occupations it didn't used to be given any at all.

I think people doing real manual labor may "wear out" as you suggest, now as then, but there are many fewer of such people around.

Snidely and Jasdip -- Thanks for not repeating what we all know about modern food, sanitation and antibiotics -- and at least considering the role hard, manual labor may have played in people dying younger because they were physically *exhausted*. Sheilajoyce also 'got it', bringing up the wear and tear on women who were depleted by endless pregnancies and deliveries, then caring for the brood -- all the while laboring in field and barn as well as the house. Yes, you would have been in good physical shape...until you weren't.

Thank you, Snidely, for pointing out the discovery by Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis that simple hand washing by doctors could substantially reduce death in childbirth. Doctors of the day who delivered babies considered it a point of pride if their hospital clothing was soiled, showing the amount of work that they did. They would certainly never wash between each patient. Dr. Semmelweis was ridiculed for his ideas.

Here is an exerpt from Wikipedia: Despite various publications of results where hand washing reduced mortality
to below 1%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the established
scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected
by the medical community. Some doctors were offended at the suggestion
that they should wash their hands and Semmelweis could offer no
acceptable scientific explanation for his findings. Semmelweis's
practice earned widespread acceptance only years after his death, when Louis Pasteur confirmed the germ theory and Joseph Lister, acting on the French microbiologist's research, practiced and operated, using hygienic methods, with great success. In 1865, Semmelweis was committed to an asylum, where he died at age 47 of pyaemia, after being beaten by the guards, only 14 days after he was committed.

Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis

Jasdip, I loved that show, too! It was Frontier House. I still think about the people (mostly males) who were happy living in their new way of life and how sad they were to leave. I wish I had the chance to live that way for awhile. I just looked it up and it's on Amazon.com for purchase.

I loved Frontier House too. I think it was based on several series that they did in Britain, which included 1900's House, which was done for the Millennium, I think. They were given a 1900's row house and a brief that had them upwardly mobile into the middle class. It was an interesting amalgam, because they had to live according to all the historical rules, but still went to work and interacted with people who were not. I think they also did a Regency House, about what an upper crust, but only fringe status and wealth, house party would have been like. I remember a promo or something about the single men taking shifts sleeping in the beds because there weren't enough.

Jasdip, Found an update on erahouse.tumblr.com. Where are they now: Frontier House.

Thanks SO much Frugalwallflower. Just as I expected would happen, she divorced him. No surprise. He really is wealthy, isn't he?