🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1987Sep27.223915.8232@sq.uucp> msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes:
>
>But it isn't the upper classes who are under discussion, it's the "normal"
>people.  Gary, do you have information on the lifespans of those you *haven't*
>heard of?  I don't, but I think that age 70 was pretty rare.

It isn't just the upper classes on whom there exists data. Parish priests kept
detailed records of births and deaths throughout Europe. In fact, if a person
survived childhood, wars, and the grimly regular famines, he stood an excellent
chance of reaching, if not 70, at least 60. The masculine pronoun is
intentional - childbirth was a major killer also. Of all these, the rich were
exempt only from famine.
  People today don't know what a real epidemic is. As recently as 1918-19, a
flu epidemic killed an estimated 20 million worldwide. It did so by weakening
its victims so that they were susceptible to massive bacterial infection. Sound
familiar?