If you'd lived 200 years ago, would you still be alive?

[Narkis]

Probably dead. Even if I survived the childhood illness whose name I can't remember that resulted in me staying in bed for almost a month consuming copious amounts of pills, the severe case of pneumonia I had on my 17 would have definitely done me in.

In addition to that, my father would've died ten years ago due to a stomach condition that required surgery, and my mother would've died in her childhood due to her appendix. So it's more than likely I'd never have existed at all.

[Duckie]

That would be asbestos. The fibers, over time, infiltrated the lungs of workers who laid out the 3M Pink Panther rolls of insulation without masks and choked off the lungs' ability to transfer oxygen to the bloodstream. Not a pleasant death by any stretch, but also something your grandfather would not have faced 200 years ago.

Fiber glass I think it's what it gets called nowadays. In any case, nasty stuff, but surely it's presence two hundred years ago would be doubtful.

Guys- 1800 is not 13 Billion BC. Asbestos is a naturally occuring mineral and so generally can exist in any time period where matter does*. There are roman documents talking about how mining asbestos was not good for slaves' health and to not purchase a slave who ever worked in such a mine. I also believe there's at least one document noting that slave insurance doesn't apply to asbestos mining.

It was fired used as an insulator in 1860, so it's not far off although admittedly not in the time period, but if the time travel thing is conspiring to give us the same medical histories by time-traveller's-coincidence (like how none of us get smallpox), then it's possible to get Asbestos Lung in 1810.

However, Fibreglass (a completely different material made out of glass fibres) itself only dates from 1938, so it indeed is out of time period.

*Technically you only need iron or magnesium, silicon, and oxygen, but a partial-existence-of-matter would be silly.

[Solauren]

Combine that with a trick shoulder (I can dislocate it at will without feeling pain) (cue the exercism), and abnormal strength as a teenager...

Odds are, I'd either be dead from disease, burned as a witch, or drafted into an army and dead in battle.

My god you are a moron.

Considering as a teenager, I had the son of a local priest ask me point blank if I was a witch or devil-worshipper because of those traits, I'd say your statement was misplaced.

[The Yosemite Bear]

right now I'm lying on my side with a hole in me

[Bounty]

Combine that with a trick shoulder (I can dislocate it at will without feeling pain) (cue the exercism), and abnormal strength as a teenager...

Odds are, I'd either be dead from disease, burned as a witch, or drafted into an army and dead in battle.

My god you are a moron.

Considering as a teenager, I had the son of a local priest ask me point blank if I was a witch or devil-worshipper because of those traits, I'd say your statement was misplaced.

Meaningless anecdote is meaningless?

Cheap party tricks and whatever the hell "abnormal strength" means don't get people burnt as witches. Not in 1809, 150 years after the last witch trial. Having some dumbshit kid ask you if you're possessed doesn't change the fact that you are an attention-whoring moron with no historical awareness.

[Mayabird]

On the myopia - no, it's always been there and is there even in not-very-literate societies, but unless it was really bad it didn't interfere in subsidence farming or whatever. It's a major undiagnosed problem in, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to low literacy rates, because a lot of the kids/adults just plain can't see well enough to read. It's how a lot of kids in the U.S. finally learn that their eyesight is bad; they struggle with reading in school and then someone does an eye exam and lo and behold! Kid thought the board was a green blur with white smudges. (It took longer than normal for them to realize how bad my eyesight was because I figured out how to compensate - I stopped keeping up at 20/500 when I was eleven and I've gotten progressively stronger glasses every few years since). Except those facilities often don't exist in those third world countries to any degree and if people can barely afford food they certainly can't afford glasses, so a lot of them just think that they're stupid and can't learn simple things that kids all over the world can pick up easily. There's an inventor who's been working on making mass-produced cheap self-adjustable glasses for this reason.

But that's more a quality of life thing than a "will I survive" thing except in very unusual circumstances.

[CaptHawkeye]

I'd probably be alive and well, since i've suffered from not one serious medical ailment or concern my whole life as of yet. My teeth would probably look like shit though. No widely available orthodontists yet.

[General Zod]

On the myopia - no, it's always been there and is there even in not-very-literate societies, but unless it was really bad it didn't interfere in subsidence farming or whatever. It's a major undiagnosed problem in, for instance, sub-Saharan Africa, contributing to low literacy rates, because a lot of the kids/adults just plain can't see well enough to read. It's how a lot of kids in the U.S. finally learn that their eyesight is bad; they struggle with reading in school and then someone does an eye exam and lo and behold! Kid thought the board was a green blur with white smudges. (It took longer than normal for them to realize how bad my eyesight was because I figured out how to compensate - I stopped keeping up at 20/500 when I was eleven and I've gotten progressively stronger glasses every few years since). Except those facilities often don't exist in those third world countries to any degree and if people can barely afford food they certainly can't afford glasses, so a lot of them just think that they're stupid and can't learn simple things that kids all over the world can pick up easily. There's an inventor who's been working on making mass-produced cheap self-adjustable glasses for this reason.

But that's more a quality of life thing than a "will I survive" thing except in very unusual circumstances.

That's pretty much how I figured it out. My relatives noticed I had trouble reading things at a distance they were able to see fine, so they made me get an eye-exam. I'd mostly managed to compensate before so didn't think anything of it.

[Havok]

My god you are a moron.

Considering as a teenager, I had the son of a local priest ask me point blank if I was a witch or devil-worshipper because of those traits, I'd say your statement was misplaced.

Meaningless anecdote is meaningless?

Cheap party tricks and whatever the hell "abnormal strength" means don't get people burnt as witches. Not in 1809, 150 years after the last witch trial. Having some dumbshit kid ask you if you're possessed doesn't change the fact that you are an attention-whoring moron with no historical awareness.

C'mon Bounty, NO ONE had a trick shoulder until the 80's. Anything before that would be obvious witch craft. Hell, that shoulder and his ability to carry 9 books at once instead of 6, may just have started up a whole NEW set of witch trials!
You are far to quick to judge sir.

[Raxmei]

Just in case anyone's getting the wrong idea, they did have eyeglasses in 1809. They'd been around for several hundred years by then. The modern style of glasses held on by temples was invented in the 18th century, as were bifocals. Corrective lenses for astigmatism had not been invented yet, so if that's your problem you really are out of luck.

[General Zod]

Just in case anyone's getting the wrong idea, they did have eyeglasses in 1809. They'd been around for several hundred years by then. The modern style of glasses held on by temples was invented in the 18th century, as were bifocals. Corrective lenses for astigmatism had not been invented yet, so if that's your problem you really are out of luck.

Weren't eyeglasses rather expensive back then? Given I have a mild astigmatism though I'd likely be screwed.

[Feil]

I would be fine.

[Simplicius]

I had some the standard childhood ailments - chicken pox, flu, misc. fevers, etc. - but those I largely shrugged off without treatment. I've not suffered any major injuries to date. A staph infection under a thumbnail, sustained when I was eight and treated in the ER, would almost certainly have killed me had it got into my blood in 1809. (Then again, in 1801 I wouldn't have tried to pry hardened pine sap off a tree to more accurately play "Jurassic Park" at recess.) I contracted bacterial pneumonia at 16 and withstood it undiagnosed and untreated for two months, but who knows how it would have progressed beyond that without treatment.

[Melchior]

I would probably have died soon after birth (I needed a incubator). If I survived, a rather nasty bout of lobular pneumonia would have killed me before my third birthday.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I had some the standard childhood ailments - chicken pox, flu, misc. fevers, etc. - but those I largely shrugged off without treatment. I've not suffered any major injuries to date. A staph infection under a thumbnail, sustained when I was eight and treated in the ER, would almost certainly have killed me had it got into my blood in 1809. (Then again, in 1801 I wouldn't have tried to pry hardened pine sap off a tree to more accurately play "Jurassic Park" at recess.) I contracted bacterial pneumonia at 16 and withstood it undiagnosed and untreated for two months, but who knows how it would have progressed beyond that without treatment.

Well, as always for limb injuries in 1809, amputation is an option. You might well have survived that pneumonia; you were quite young. That was the same sort of thing I mentioned for myself. Of course, it might have easily killed you, too.

[Kuja]

So, like, am I the only one so far that would be alive, and have no problems whatsoever, and possibly even be better off?

I think I'd be in that boat with you, Hav. I've never had a life-threatening injury or illness - the worst I've been through was getting some nasty colds and bronchitis in the winters as a kid and ripping my arm open one summer. I'd still need glasses, but that would be managable and yeah, I think I'd be with you in actually being in better shape than I am right now.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't know. I had pneumonia when I was younger, so that might have been it, I suppose.

Though of course for all I know, given the general lack of hygene compared to modern times, I might have picked up something completely different and died that way.

[Junghalli]

I was born premature and had to be kept in an incubator for a week and I had jaundice as a baby, so I suspect I might very well not have survived infancy. Assuming I managed to pull through I'd probably have made it to 20 or so, at which point I might very well have died of a recurring staph infection. I'd likely be missing a couple of toes or maybe a leg even if I survived from the first infection I got on my toe, and as the bacteria had made a home in my nostrils and kept re-infecting me from there it might have killed me the next time around when I got an infection on my torso. Even with antibiotics I still have scars from the three giant craters that got eaten in my flesh in different parts of my body, I have no trouble imagining it being fatal without them, especially as without the antibiotic treatment in my nostrils I'd probably still have been getting one infection after another until my body naturally developed immunity or one of them finally finished me off.