Medical advances causing over population

ScumLord

The average population before advanced medical techniques became common in the last century was supposedly 1 billion and it's now 6 billion. That should mean that 5 in 6 people should have developed some sort of medical problem or had an accident that would have killed them if they where born in the 1800s.

I'd like to make a poll but I'd like to know what would have killed you back then.

I'm thinking if you suffered any organ damage in an accident or ever used antibiotics. Are there other things I should add to the list or are those things even always mostly fatal?

Capt'n Midnight

Population growth is slowing down in more affluent areas such that there may be a peak population of 11 billion.

Re 5 out of 6 dying, more babies are being born to day because of the higher population. It's not that there is a constant number of babies and more are surviving now.

But babies is a key point allright. Much of the growth in life expectancy is due to reduced infant mortality up to age five or so, rather than people living longer in later life. A fourty year old today has a similar life expectancy to one a hundred and fifty years ago. (can't remember the exact stats, but it's something like three years gain compared to a doubling of life expectancy at birth)

Obsety is a problem such that the previous generation may live longer than the current one.

1800's other risks were accidental death, smallpox, malnutrition / starvation
Nowadays democracies don't have famines, the problem is usually food distribution and pricing. Vaccinations have removed major killers

There should be stats on line to show what people did die of. You could then list the risks that have been eliminated (smallpox, famine, preventable diseases) and the one drastically reduced (horses!, heavy metals) and the new ones (cars,radiation)

ScumLord

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Population growth is slowing down in more affluent areas such that there may be a peak population of 11 billion.

Re 5 out of 6 dying, more babies are being born to day because of the higher population. It's not that there is a constant number of babies and more are surviving now.

But babies is a key point allright. Much of the growth in life expectancy is due to reduced infant mortality up to age five or so, rather than people living longer in later life. A fourty year old today has a similar life expectancy to one a hundred and fifty years ago. (can't remember the exact stats, but it's something like three years gain compared to a doubling of life expectancy at birth)

So any birth complications could mean you would have died. The documentary "how many people can live on planet earth said the main problem with over population is that people aren't dying and we're in a unique situation where there could be 3 or more generations alive at the same time. I can see how babies would be a major contributing factor.

1800's other risks were accidental death, smallpox, malnutrition / starvation
Nowadays democracies don't have famines, the problem is usually food distribution and pricing. Vaccinations have removed major killers

I suppose malnutrition and starvation would be poverty and unemployment in today's terms. With less food waste around for people to eat back then. I couldn't go into specific diseases I'm kind of looking for general

There should be stats on line to show what people did die of. You could then list the risks that have been eliminated (smallpox, famine, preventable diseases) and the one drastically reduced (horses!, heavy metals) and the new ones (cars,radiation)

Yeah, I do want it to be things that do happen to people today that also happened back then that while they are minor now, would have most certainly killed someone before modern medical training and products came along.

I had an infection (from a small cut) when I was young and the doctor told me at the time if it was left untreated it would have killed me but the antibiotics he gave me cleared it up almost immediately. It's always stuck in my head when people go on about the good old days. It always pops up in the back of my head that in the good old days I'd be long dead by now.

Tree

I dunno, but i'd ahve expected the revolutions in agriculture would be the main cause of the over population, the encouragement to have more babies because you can feed them. But i haven't looked into this in any great detail.

ScumLord

Tree wrote: »

I dunno, but i'd ahve expected the revolutions in agriculture would be the main cause of the over population, the encouragement to have more babies because you can feed them. But i haven't looked into this in any great detail.

Wasn't it really only in the 50s that industrial farming techniques were brought to the third world counties, I have a vague memory of seeing a documentary about it. I'm sure it helped but it doesn't really stop deaths in a healthy environment.

Capt'n Midnight

What causes population increase if there are more births than deaths.
What drives more births is if the parents feel they need someone to look after them in old age. Also womens education and access to birth control are factors that reduce birth rate.

Africa has a huge way to go in agriculture, lots of fallow land , lots of very small inefficient farms. Places like India and China would have less fallow land and be more efficient but also have lower birth rates.

AtomicHorror

ScumLord wrote: »

The average population before advanced medical techniques became common in the last century was supposedly 1 billion and it's now 6 billion. That should mean that 5 in 6 people should have developed some sort of medical problem or had an accident that would have killed them if they where born in the 1800s.

Not exactly. The number of people who have lived to reproduce as a result of medical advances (assuming medicine were the sole cause, which it isn't) would be the number of people who survived due to said advances minus the number that would have survived anyway, at every generation since 1800. That's not an easy figure to estimate, but it's not a stretch to suggest that the world population would be far more than 1 billion today even without modern medicines- simply because 1 billion people left to their own devices will become many more. After all, to reproduce one need only have a life expectancy in or around 40-50 years. In fact, it's not particularly meaningful to think about the question solely in terms of lives saved, but more in terms of life-expectancies (the longer you live the more you can reproduce, particularly if you're male).

Don't forget, the public hygiene revolution is bound to have had a massive influence. That came off the back of germ theory, which inspired hospitals and governments to follow basic cleaning and quarantining practices. Others have mentioned the developments in agriculture, and to that I'd also add improvements in transportation and communications, which have allowed greater numbers of people easier access a wide variety of foods, improving general health and reducing the impact of local crop failures.

ScumLord

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Don't forget, the public hygiene revolution is bound to have had a massive influence.

All that is true and that's why I'd like to see how many people have been saved by modern medicine alone with a super scientific boards.ie poll. I just need to have a basic outline of if this happened to you 200 years ago you where a goner.

AtomicHorror

ScumLord wrote: »

All that is true and that's why I'd like to see how many people have been saved by modern medicine alone with a super scientific boards.ie poll. I just need to have a basic outline of if this happened to you 200 years ago you where a goner.

Would be an interesting poll- but debatable how much you'd really be learning from it. For myself, I could say there's a reasonable chance I would have died in or around the age of 2 years due to my first asthma attack, but what that chance of death would actually be is very hard to say. Being born to a middle class family with attentive parents, I may well have reached adulthood, albeit in poor health and far less likely to reproduce. But it's impossible for me to put firm numbers on any of this. If I can't do it with an actual education in biology, are you going to get more meaningful answers from a more general poll?

It's a fascinating question though.

Capt'n Midnight

A poll records the opinions of people who do the poll. It's not a good way to do historical research.

You will miss lots of probable causes.

Also the provision of clean water far outweighs the benefits of decent sewers.

ScumLord

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

A poll records the opinions of people who do the poll. It's not a good way to do historical research.

You will miss lots of probable causes.

You question the scientificness of my methods? :pac: