Many more children died of Heat Stroke when I was growing up in the 1950s

 One of the reasons was that Air Conditoiners mostly people did not have. They might have what is called "Swamp Coolers" which are an electric fan on the roof blowing down through what seemed like Wet hay or something and this made the whole house smell like a Swamp over time. Though Swamp coolers kept you alive it wasn't as good as Air Conditioners eventually were. Also, Air conditioners in Cars and homes were almost non-existent in the 1950s too except for the very rich.

I can remember driving across New Mexico and Arizona when it was about 110 to 115 degrees and having a headache for 2 to three days as a child being maybe 8 to 10 years old. We didn't have air conditioning at all in any cars we owned until our 1960 Mercury Station wagon in 1960. So this was the very first car we owned with an air conditioner. However, my father's work trucks didn't ever have air conditioners only heaters which weren't very good either. My father's 1941 Century Buick that belonged to this brother that he drove after World War II and the 1956 Century Buick that my father bought new in 1956 didn't have air conditioning either. Even my 1968 Camaro that I bought new in 1968 and my 1965 and 1966 VW Bugs didn't have air conditioning either. The first vehicle I think that actually had air conditioning might have been my 1976 VW Rabbit. But, my IH Scout II 4 wheel drive didn't have air conditioning either . However, I think my 1976 toyota Longbed truck Did have Air conditioning.

But, being a child in the 1950s and it getting so hot your head ached for several days with a headache was very normal for those times. I can remember one time dropping off my mother at the Los Angeles Airport when she was going to visit her relatives in Seattle that we drove home to Glendale and it took 4 to 5 hours in the traffic and it was 110 to 115 degrees in our car and this likely was the end for me regarding 110 to 115 degrees and no air conditioning in heavy Traffic in Los Angeles. Ever after this I hated Los Angeles Traffic whether I had air conditioning or not in any vehicle I or we owned.

When you have a headache for 3 days from the heat basically you had heat stroke and you almost died. So, from this point of view I almost died many different times as a child growing up in Arizona, New Mexico and Southern California because having a headache for several days from the heat was pretty normal and sometimes dying of the heat back then. It's just what people did a whole lot more than now. There was a whole lot more ignorance about everything medical in the 1950s still.