OK guys, I have this thought or two about plastic and the way I can feel its creeping tendrils making connections to other parts of my brain makes me think this could get awful conspiracy real quick, so…you’ve been warned.
Brilliant connections that you drew here. The connections you made make sense to me. And the "improvements" to birthing processes in the early 1900s - courtesy of a combination of the Flexner Report and Dr. Joseph DeLee - certainly did not improve birth outcomes, but worsened infant mortality over the course of the next several decades.
Depends what stats you're looking at. Basic hygiene from sewage not being in streets and people washing their hands (including surgeons) was huge in decreasing fatal infections from things like broken bones. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895849/ A lot of that gets attributed to antibiotics, but those came along later (on accident and with plenty of side effects, of course). And like you said, it's hard to trust history as it's been told/sold to us, so tracking these things is challenging.
I'm reminded of a line from the Jimmy Eat World song, Futures:
Brilliant connections that you drew here. The connections you made make sense to me. And the "improvements" to birthing processes in the early 1900s - courtesy of a combination of the Flexner Report and Dr. Joseph DeLee - certainly did not improve birth outcomes, but worsened infant mortality over the course of the next several decades.
Is it a bunch of creative math to get to longer reported lifespans? Or is it more than that?
Depends what stats you're looking at. Basic hygiene from sewage not being in streets and people washing their hands (including surgeons) was huge in decreasing fatal infections from things like broken bones. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2895849/ A lot of that gets attributed to antibiotics, but those came along later (on accident and with plenty of side effects, of course). And like you said, it's hard to trust history as it's been told/sold to us, so tracking these things is challenging.
I'm reminded of a line from the Jimmy Eat World song, Futures:
"Hey now, the past is told by those who win.
My darling, what matters is what hasn't been."