BBC News | Health | A millennium of health improvement - 0 views
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In the medieval world, there was a belief that only miracles were so powerful
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full and healthy life for men was making it through early childhood. For women, it was making it past childbearing age.
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boy had reached 20 he could hope to live to 45, and if he made it to 30 he had a good chance of making it into his fifties.
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main threats lay in early childhood, as the child's immune system was coming to terms with the threats posed by a disease-ridden environment.
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Thatch roofs were common in the countryside (where 85-90% of the population lived) and they attracted insects and rodents
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Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (Cladium mariscus), rushes, or heather, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. See images: https://www.google.com/search?q=Thatch+roofs&safe=strict&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjttJ-5su3KAhXDzoMKHXb_D-EQ_AUIBygB&biw=1374&bih=676&dpr=0.9
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There was no plumbing, so human waste was deposited outside - but not too far from - the house. Such material produced a breeding ground for the biggest killers of the period, cholera and typhoid, which were caused by unsanitary living conditions.
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It was noblemen who were most successful at keeping themselves clean, and they surrounded themselves with well-scrubbed servants.
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But between the ages of 14 and 40 - the years of having children - a woman's life expectancy was half that of a man's.
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One reason offered for this is that having babies in the middle ages was more dangerous than going to war
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Food storage was also primitive, with no refrigeration except in winter, and consumers showed a tolerance of slightly rancid goods because there was a general shortage of food.