Men leaving the pit, before the start of World War I. The average life expectancy of a Liverpool mineworker was 30 years in 1900.
This is from Wikipedia under the heading: labour law
This might seem hard for you to imagine now in 2016. However, in the 1950s and 1960s almost everyone over about 40 or 50 only had 1 to 5 teeth in their head and wore false teeth either upper or lower or both.
One guy I worked with from Canada liked to open Coke bottles with his teeth because it was macho. Eventually he wore false teeth too. He was only 40.
People in the 1950s I knew who were say 45 looked a lot like 65 to 75year olds now. And most people were dead by 50 or 60 years of age in the 1950s still, though some made it into their 70s.
What I'm saying is the quality of life through education and diet and exercise and specialized doctors has raised the median death age in the U.S. by at least 20 years or more since I was a child.
No comments:
Post a Comment