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jinasphinxNY Times article: So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You. Some interesting bits:
Scientists used to say that the reason people are living so long these days is that medicine is keeping them alive, though debilitated. But studies like one Dr. Fogel directs, of Union Army veterans, have led many to rethink that notion.
....
The first surprise was just how sick people were, and for how long. .... They discovered that almost everyone of the Civil War generation was plagued by life-sapping illnesses, suffering for decades. ... Even teenagers were ill. Eighty percent of the male population ages 16 to 19 tried to sign up for the Union Army in 1861, but one out of six was rejected because he was deemed disabled.
And the Union Army was not very picky. “Incontinence of urine alone is not grounds for dismissal,” said Dora Costa...quoting from the regulations. A man who was blind in his right eye was disqualified from serving because that was his musket eye. But, ... “blindness in the left eye was O.K.”
....
Men living in the Civil War era had an average height of 5-foot-7 and weighed an average of 147 pounds. ... Today, men average 5-foot-9½ and weigh an average of 191 pounds...
And here's an interesting short story about life in the Monsanto world after peak oil.
