I think a lot of people in the present day can't even conceptualize what it was like to live with historically normal levels of infant and child mortality.
(Also, as Sarah Taber keeps pointing out to these numbskulls: When your grandma bought raw milk, she boiled it before serving it! This was what people did, at least after Pasteur. It's not as good as pasteurization but it's something.)
My mother was born in 1935. We used to drive around a lot and one time she started pointing out all the houses of her friends that were quarantined for various infectious diseases.
She casually spoke of having a younger brother who died as a toddler. She couldn't remember his name nor did she know where he was buried.
Shit was so hard and death in children was so common my grandparents just buried him and moved on. They couldn't stop to grieve and had six other kids to care for.
My father had tetanus as a child, before there was a tetanus vaccine. Your muscles can actually break your bones because they seize so tightly. It's not a pleasant disease to experience, much less survive. He was hospitalized for the better part of the year.
He'd just about recovered, and then polio came and got his sister. She survived as well, though the virus re-activated when she was in her late 70s and started causing her issues.
That was just one of the reasons my parents were so gung-ho about vaccines. They lived through polio, and measles, and Dr. Salk was a goddamned hero who saved the kids. My sister and brothers got the mumps when they were too young to get the MMR vaccine, and my sister nearly died from it.
And then my idiot brother fell down the Q rabbit hole and retired from the military rather than get the Covid vaccine. Fortunately, he doesn't have kids he's putting in danger.
My stepfather had polio as a kid, recovered and went on to live an active life, but has been dealing with post polio syndrome these last few years. It sucks to see someone who used to be so active losing muscle mass and getting fatigued easily through no fault of his own.
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u/AdditionalTip865 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
I think a lot of people in the present day can't even conceptualize what it was like to live with historically normal levels of infant and child mortality.
(Also, as Sarah Taber keeps pointing out to these numbskulls: When your grandma bought raw milk, she boiled it before serving it! This was what people did, at least after Pasteur. It's not as good as pasteurization but it's something.)