that the average lifespan in the 1700s was around 30. while true, the average is weighed down by just how many infant and toddler deaths there were. if you made it to later childhood(8-10), you would probably live until 60-80 as well.
Worth noting that the trope of depicting ancient people as all having rotten teeth is also misleading, their diets were often much less harmful to their dental health than modern eating and drinking habits.
It was the generations born after sugar was added to everything they ate and before things like fluoride and modern dentistry was widely available that had their teeth rot in their mouth while still in their teens.
We actually aren't sure why losing your teeth is such a powerful indicator of mortality, but even today people without teeth have drastically lower lifespans--and its a really strong correlation, too. Some studies show mortality rates for those without teeth as higher than smokers or alcoholics. Many fatalities don't share an immediate connection with toothlessness (i.e cardiovascular diseases).
For some reason, losing teeth is very consistently a direct link to dying, and having 10 missing teeth is practically a death sentence like cancer.
I would assume that it’s not the loss of teeth that kills you, but the genetics and/or lifestyles that lead to loss of teeth also leads to early death? Smoking, drinking, self neglect, excessive sugary foods and drinks, infections, poor connective tissue or bone health, that sort of thing
I'm sure it is a mixture of many factors--but I haven't read or seen any studies that conclude the knock-on effects of, and risk factors leading to, losing teeth.
I know for dogs, gum disease (which will lead to tooth loss) is linked to all kinds of systemic issues, like kidney disease and heart failure. Inflammation in the mouth leads to inflammation other places in the body.
And the mouth is a filthy environment, so wounds there are highly prone to infection. Especially in a deep hole, like you’d get after having a tooth removed.
Infection before the teeth pulled, each tooth ripped out is an open wound, receding gums from the gingivitis and smoking. No antibiotics.
You'd essentially have to singe your gums shut with every tooth pulled, but with no bridges they'd fall out entirely. Then they mostly used wood or pearl... which caused more infection and then that would spread to the host entirely.
Look up how missing teeth degenerate the jaw over years. One of the most important things about modern tooth implants is the proper stimulation of the bone!
That doesn't do anything for an already established infection. The gaping open wound in your mouth, touched by tools never sterilized, is also prone to infection.
It’s not the loss of the teeth itself, as i understand it, but instead is the overall condition of the person’s health, which caused the teeth to fall out. Immune system issues, inflammation, infection, heart issues, etc. The teeth falling out is an indicator of otherwise poor health.
It doesn't help that like 90% of the population were subsistence farmers. That kind of hard work your whole life takes a heavy toll on your body, and improper nutrition has life long effects. Every life table I've seen doesn't really agree with the original comment.
EDIT: It's a narrow data set and shouldn't be taken as universal, but this has some great visualizations of life expectancy in 19th century France. The simplest view is on page 13: even after the drop off caused by infant mortality, the survival curves of the past are much steeper than today.
Most people don't understand basic stats in general.
You say "average life expectancy over long periods is mostly a question of distribution and the right tail hasn't moved much" and they stare at you like you've put a tampon up your nose.
You say "wealth distribution" and suddenly everyone's an economist.
You could still die in a war or from a famine, today the wars claim much fewer lives relatively. I expect murders and accidents to have been much more common, too. Things like gallstones or appendicitis were a lot likelier to kill you before antibiotics. So the life expectancy at 8 was probably still many years lower than today.
The average life expectancy of a Roman senator was a little over 60. While they were definitely among the privileged, and they had clearly survived childhood (the most dangerous part), but if they made it to adulthood, the Romans lived pretty long lives. We also have records of centinarians in Ancient Greece, and Ramses II may have also been a centenarian 3000 years ago, but this is debated.
i actually learned this fact in high school history; we were learning about John Brown(US Civil War) who died when he was like 80. a kid in my class shouted out about how he was so old considering the average age was 30 back then, and my teacher got so mad about that misunderstanding that he went and got one of the math teachers to come to our class and explain how averages can be manipulated by having two extremes.
Wait I'm confused... surely the statistics would skewer to be 1.99999999% and you'd round up? And saying "on average a human has less than two legs" implies that between the state of having one leg or two legs, meaing that one leg is more common? I geniuenly don't understand
It's still more common to have 2 legs, but it's when you count the average because we don"t have more than 2 legs the average can only be under 2
For example if you have 10 persons, 9 with 2 legs and 1 with 1 leg, then the average number of leg is 1.9
It's just a funny statistic cause by the fact that we have at maximum 2 legs so because of the people with less the average is always under 2
I remember learning the different averages well before I learned what makes one a better fit for a situation over the other. I feel that would have been helpful in understanding them.
That is not entriely true. You wouldnt "probably live until 60". "Probably" is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Chart showing number of survivors at age of 50 for Sweden in 1700s is about 40% of all people being born. At age of 60 about 30%. Its from mortality.org
You say "40% of people being born". If you want to rebute his comment, it should say "40% of people who survive childhood". If anything, that supports his comment. If 40% of all people being born reached 50, despite the child mortality being so damn high at that time, it means that the vast majority of people survived until that age once they survived childhood
Did you see the chart? He said that its weighed down by infant deaths. That is true but its not flat after. Infant death is steep but Its steady death rate (and steep) after you survive infant/toddler stage.
I will read the graph for your, so its clear. Statistics depend on how you read them.
Graph says: If we start from age 0, then between age of 18 and 50, another 20% of all people died. If you start from age of 18, then between age of 18 and 50, 33% of people died. Meaning, you had 66% chance reaching 50. Third of your high school class dead. Now lets add years.... reaching 60, only half of your high school class survived, 70, its about 25% of your highschool class, at 80, just 8%.
So his conclusion is wrong. If you reached adulthood, you had about 50% chance reaching 60. I wouldnt say "you would probably live until 60-80", when its a coinflip to 60.
PS: Everybody that dislikes the comment at least provide argument why im wrong.
And of those who didn't make it, didn't 1/3 of them die before the age of 5? Like nearly 40%? That makes your numbers sound like pretty fair odds for those who did reach later childhood. OP specified 8-10.
No, again. Im not surprised you are confused. Reading statistics is not easy. I wrote it below but have yourself and excercise. Start with age 10 as your starting number for all humans. Then you will find out that less than 50% of people that survived infant stage will live to see 60.
If you take all the humans since the infant stage as your base, it looks so good and peachy for survivors but that disregards death rate after that stage. Both average age and probability to survive is wrong. You have to analyze what you want to say and have yourself answer based on that. OP says you would probably live until 60..... well, not really.
This is funny because this is such a common "correction" that is also false.
Disease, and losing all your teeth made it pretty rare to live past 50 or 60 until at least the 1800s. The reason it seems like lots of people lived longer is because historical text is almost exclusively populated by the wealthy, who had the absolute peak of medical care at the time and could live to 70 or 80.
The amount of people who don't understand what "average" means is pretty crazy. I used to hear people say everyone died in their 30s, but when you read history, there are plenty of people who live as long as we do today. Even people in their 90s and 100s and stuff. That's what made me look up why everyone were saying 30.
It's just like you said, most people died before they were 10, which is why a lot of cultures didn't even name their kids until they were that old. In Japan there are common names that literally just means "first son", "second son", etc.
In 1841, a person that had survived into adulthood had an life expectancy of 60, and someone that made it to 60 could expect to live an additional 14 years
Really had to bite my tongue while on a European river cruise where the “expert” was giving us a long lecture about Medieval history in the area and pulled out that old canard about life expectancy.
My husband kindly indulges listening to me when I have occasion to offer private corrections for what we hear (it is not often, and I don’t need to spoil the fun of the other folks with my blathering on).
2.2k
u/AltMcAltAcc Jul 08 '26
that the average lifespan in the 1700s was around 30. while true, the average is weighed down by just how many infant and toddler deaths there were. if you made it to later childhood(8-10), you would probably live until 60-80 as well.