Posted on 07/24/2021 6:16:46 AM PDT by Qiviut
Abstract: Analysis of the mid-Victorian period in the U.K. reveals that life expectancy at age 5 was as good or better than exists today, and the incidence of degenerative disease was 10% of ours. Their levels of physical activity and hence calorific intakes were approximately twice ours. They had relatively little access to alcohol and tobacco; and due to their correspondingly high intake of fruits, whole grains, oily fish and vegetables, they consumed levels of micro- and phytonutrients at approximately ten times the levels considered normal today. This paper relates the nutritional status of the mid-Victorians to their freedom from degenerative disease; and extrapolates recommendations for the cost-effective improvement of public health today.
1. Introduction (partial) The mid-Victorian period is usually defined as the years between 1850 and 1870, but in nutritional terms we have identified a slightly longer period, lasting until around 1880. During these 30 years, we argue here, a generation grew up with probably the best standards of health ever enjoyed by a modern state. The British population had risen significantly and had become increasingly urbanised, but the great public health movement had not yet been established and Britain’s towns and cities were still notoriously unhealthy environments [4,5]. Despite this, and contrary to historical tradition, we argue in this paper, using a range of historical evidence, which Britain and its world-dominating empire were supported by a workforce, an army and a navy comprised of individuals who were healthier, fitter and stronger than we are today. They were almost entirely free of the degenerative diseases which maim and kill so many of us, and although it is commonly stated that this is because they all died young, the reverse is true; public records reveal that they lived as long – or longer – than we do in the 21st century. These findings are remarkable, as this brief period of great good health predates not only the public health movement but also the great 20th century medical advances in surgery, infection control and drugs [6–8]. They are also in marked contrast to popular views about Victorian squalor and disease, views that have long obscured the realities of life and death during that ‘period of equipoise’ [9]. Our recent research indicates that the mid-Victorians’ good health was entirely due to their superior diet. This period was, nutritionally speaking, an island in time; one that was created and subsequently squandered by economic and political forces. This begs a series of questions. How did this brief nutritional ‘golden age’ come about? How was it lost? And could we recreate it?
There is MUCH more at the link and the paper is easy reading.
Fascinating. Thank you for posting. Free Republic does indeed rock.
I a multi vitamin a good idea. How about a mega multi.
Interesting that they had watercress as a staple, very high antioxidant score.
This very much correlates with what you see when you visit old graveyards. You will see a family plot where numerous children dies very young, 2 months to 5 years of age. Then you’ll see members of the same family who lived into their 80s and 90s.
This sounds dubious to me. First of all, “life expectancy at age 5” is a tip off that stats have been cherry picked. A huge number of kids never made it that far.
Second, how is it possible that British subjects had little access to alcohol? Because water quality was suspect even kids often drank beer. They had plenty of pubs in those days.
It’s been estimated that one in five Londoners has syphilis by age 35. Even more had contracted gonorrhea or chlamydia. Horse droppings in the street, rats, and industrial pollution all contributed to an unhealthy environment.
I’m not buying it.
The last two questions of your post is easy to answer. I’m not so sure they’re being honest about red meat consumption but it does make for an interesting read and it disputes many notions like shortened life expectancy. Many articles I have read about people from back then many folks lived long lives and were very accomplished, it seemed odd to me. Now we know they we healthy and not nearly as disease ridden as we were taught.
The last questions;
“ How was it lost?”
“ And could we recreate it?”
ANSWERS
(1) technological advances that provided more “free” time. Just like today.
(2) NO.
The Irish potato famine occurred when the were bumper harvests of agricultural exports to England enforced by soldiers who were in Ireland specifically to stop the Irish from getting the food. In the midst of 2 phases of the famine, with a change of Govt. to a harsher regime, the Irish were forced to change from potatoes to culturally unfamiliar Indian corn, maize. This was at the beginning of the cited, mid Victorian period.
Thanks. My wife is Irish, I hear about that period often,, especially since she’s done a quite extensive genealogical research tracking the medical condition called Lynch Syndrome that affects her and all of our children.
It reads as if they decided what happened, then wrote their narrative to fit.
Statistics from that period are sparse, I imagine.
Of course. But how many people think that nobody in the past lived to old age because life expectancy at birth was so low compared to today? Certainly, the Victorian period was no golden age for health, but it seems like everybody who writes about the history of health, disease and mortality rates has to correct that popular misconception.
. for later
“they lived as long – or longer – than we do in the 21st century”
So which is it? As long or longer? If the data is out there, then why so vague about it?
Medicine has come a long way since then. They didn’t understand washing hands. A splinter in a finger could cause death back then.
Queen Victoria lived to the ripe old age of 82. William Gladstone died at 89 and Florence Nightingale made it to 90.
But Charles Dickens died at 68, Emily Brontë at 30. Engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel died at 53. Oscar Wilde at 46.
Between the lack of antibiotics and ineffective treatments fir lots of common diseases, unsafe working conditions, and other nasty factors I have a hard time wallowing this report. It’s likely agenda driven. Unless of course the modern British medical system of nationalized healthcare really is that bad.
Interesting article of the class of people Karl Mark called the “PROLOTERIAT” in his view of English society in that period of time. Marx only saw two classes of society. Here is a def of “proloteriat”
1. (esp. in Marxist theory) the class of workers, esp. industrial wage earners, who do not possess capital or property and must sell their labor to survive. 2. (esp. in ancient Rome) the lowest or poorest class of citizens, possessing no property.
Disagree. Once kids started eating the adult foods they were healthy.
It reinforces the conclusion.
How many people died in automobile accidents in 1885? Plane crashes? Electrocutions? Where these causes of death taken out when calculating life expectancy in the modern era?
Probably the kiddos weren’t eating the good stuff yet.
I would bet that only well off families could afford good food and a stone marker that would last 150 years. Poorer families living on less probably had wood markers.
Chain reaction horse and buggy crashes were gruesome.
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