But, I suppose the life expectancy of men in the 1800's was nothing like it is today, alas.
Thanks for your tribute to our military in this post, Hoosier. Very nice.
Leni
Brahms died of liver cancer, the same thing that killed his father. It was incurable then; it's incurable now.
The last thing Brahms had on the boards at the time of his death was a ragtime piano project.
If you were fortunate enough back then to get to the age of 6 or 7, or so, the life expectancy wasn't much different than it is today. The overall low life expenctancy was largely due to deaths of fairly young children. If you ever have the opportunity to go through an old cemetary look at the number of deaths of children in the first few years of their lives. About half of the deaths were of children below 8 years of age