Clayton and Rowbotham look at how the mid-Victorians worked, ate and died — which was surprisingly well, really:
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.
[...]
Given that modern pharmaceutical, surgical, anaesthetic, scanning and other diagnostic technologies were self-evidently unavailable to the mid-Victorians, their high life expectancy is very striking, and can only have been due to their health-promoting lifestyle. But the implications of this new understanding of the mid-Victorian period are rather more profound. It shows that medical advances allied to the pharmaceutical industry’s output have done little more than change the manner of our dying. The Victorians died rapidly of infection and/or trauma, whereas we die slowly of degenerative disease. It reveals that with the exception of family planning, the vast edifice of twentieth century healthcare has not enabled us to live longer but has in the main merely supplied methods of suppressing the symptoms of degenerative diseases which have emerged due to our failure to maintain mid-Victorian nutritional standards.
Funny how in their summary they didn’t mention the pastured meats and backyard chickens and eggs they listed in the article.
A dubious paper.
How delightfully… reactionary.
More organ meats. A lot more.
Lower alcohol content beer.
Far less smoking.
Regular physical activity.
2x-3x as many servings of vegetables, and given the quality of soils 150 years ago, probably of far far higher quality.
Life expectancy about the same (at 5 years) but with vitality until death, versus slow deterioration.
Much slower progression of cancers, which were rare.
Back To The Future, indeed.