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If you want to glimpse into a world without modern medicine, just pick up a Victorian book. In the first half of the 19th century, between 40% and 50% of children in the U.S. didn't live past the age of five. Kids were dying of diseases that are now preventable by vaccination, treatable with antibiotics, or out of the picture thanks to better sanitation, as well as from consuming unpasteurized milk or contaminated foods. @TheConversationUS looks at how this shows up in classic fiction, periodicals and personal writing. "These Victorian stories commemorate a profound, culturally shared grief. To dismiss them as old-fashioned is to assume they are outdated because of the passage of time. But the collective pain of a high child mortality rate was eradicated not by time, but by effort," writes Andrea Kaston Tange, a professor of English.
#Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Literature #PublicHealth #Disease #DiseasePrevention
@CultureDesk @TheConversationUS @bookstodon is that the Antivaxxers Bible. These diseases were brought to an end in the US and Great Britian by scientific theory and vaccines, if we go back further in time to 1665, does anyone really think they wouldn't have killed for a vaccine fir the Bubonic Plague back then. I assure you they would that little bugger nicked off about 33% of the population. There were places that were saved though and it had nothing to do with religion but everything to do
@CultureDesk @TheConversationUS @bookstodon with genetics, some people are lucky enough to have a mutant gene called Delta 32, the people who have one copy of this gene got the disease and mostly lived, thise with 2 copies were as right as rain all through.
On second thoughts though, vaccines are like house insurance, they might prove expensive but believe me in a fire they are awfully worth getting.
@CultureDesk @TheConversationUS @bookstodon
There are so many old #cemeteries from this era filled with headstones for small kids. Just heartbreaking.
@nickgully @bookstodon @CultureDesk @TheConversationUS I’ve said some pro vaccine/science group needs to make an ad featuring old graveyards. And state plainly they want to kill and immiserate your kids.