Read Online THAT WAS THE MILLENIUM THAT WAS by John Scalzi - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Scalzi
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squirt out that many kids; in those days, women died in childbirth in numbers that are nothing short of horrifying.
Fast forward to my tenth year, when I broke my leg (I had a fight with a car. I lost). I broke both bones in the lower right leg. They doped me up real good and set the bones. In the 1600s, of course, there was no anesthesia; in order to set by bones back then, five 200-pound men would have had to sit on my chest and extremities in order to keep me still while the doctor maneuvered the ones into place. In my break, aside from scrapes, the skin was unbroken; mildly lucky now, but back then, it would have been a minor miracle. Broken skin would have almost certainly caused the wound to get infected. Given the general hygiene of the 17th century (it was a festering pit) and poor state of medical technology, I would be a goner likely as not.
Jump again to my 18th year, when I slam my face into a door at college, snapping off the bottom half of my front tooth. I cursed my stupidity, and then went to the dentist to get the thing capped. In the 17th century, of course, there were no caps and not much in the way of dentists (they were often barbers -- the traditional red and white barber pole is a memory of those days, the colors representing bandages before and after dental surgery). I would be stuck looking like Jethro until the tooth rotted out of my skull. Which wouldn't have taken very long, since they weren't exactly selling toothbrushes down at the market.
Also, I probably wouldn't have gone to college. It presumes literacy at the very least, and there'd be only a fifty-fifty chance of that . Hell, it's not like I or anyone I'd know would actually own a book, except -- possibly -- a bible. If I was lucky, I'd be an apprentice to a trade and doing what amounted to slave work for several years (oddly enough, this practice continues in academia; the poor bastards are known as "grad students").
If I were unlucky, I'd be off killing and being killed by some foreign person in a war of dubious value. I'd almost certainly be killed; I'm nearsighted and without glasses being widely available, I wouldn't be very good at noticing that archer lining up his shot 35 yards away. And if I wasn't killed on the field, I'd die of my wounds (which, historically speaking, have always killed more soldiers than the actual battles).
I'm 30 now, which in the 1600s would make me, if not exactly old, certainly getting up there -- the life expectancy right up to the 20th century was in the mid-30s, thanks to childhood mortality, disease, war, plague and the general crappiness of the age. I'd certainly look older than I do now -- life was harder then. Frankly, if I were back in the 1600s, the only thing I'd have to be thankful for was that I wasn't born a woman. As bad as the men had it, the women had it, oh, much, much worse.
You might say that in comparison to past ages, people today are soft -- that we at the top of the human pyramid have it far too easy. Well, yes; yes we do. Personally, I like to think that my ancestors wouldn't have it any other way, and that if they still exist in some spiritual plane, that they look down and see me typing away and think to themselves: Amazing. 30 years old and he still has all his teeth. They wouldn't think of me as soft for having those teeth (quite the opposite, in fact).
So be thankful you're here now. For an admittedly small number of us on the planet, it's the best time ever to be alive. And if you feel mildly guilty about that (why should you have it easy, when all your ancestors died at age 35, with bare gums?) then do this: Do what you can so that when your great- grandchildren ten times removed look back at today, they wonder how we could have possibly survived in such savage, unkempt times.
Best "Little" Invention of the Millennium.
Punctuation. It is perhaps the epitome of what should be regarded as a "little" invention (a category whose criteria I am forming as I write this,
Fast forward to my tenth year, when I broke my leg (I had a fight with a car. I lost). I broke both bones in the lower right leg. They doped me up real good and set the bones. In the 1600s, of course, there was no anesthesia; in order to set by bones back then, five 200-pound men would have had to sit on my chest and extremities in order to keep me still while the doctor maneuvered the ones into place. In my break, aside from scrapes, the skin was unbroken; mildly lucky now, but back then, it would have been a minor miracle. Broken skin would have almost certainly caused the wound to get infected. Given the general hygiene of the 17th century (it was a festering pit) and poor state of medical technology, I would be a goner likely as not.
Jump again to my 18th year, when I slam my face into a door at college, snapping off the bottom half of my front tooth. I cursed my stupidity, and then went to the dentist to get the thing capped. In the 17th century, of course, there were no caps and not much in the way of dentists (they were often barbers -- the traditional red and white barber pole is a memory of those days, the colors representing bandages before and after dental surgery). I would be stuck looking like Jethro until the tooth rotted out of my skull. Which wouldn't have taken very long, since they weren't exactly selling toothbrushes down at the market.
Also, I probably wouldn't have gone to college. It presumes literacy at the very least, and there'd be only a fifty-fifty chance of that . Hell, it's not like I or anyone I'd know would actually own a book, except -- possibly -- a bible. If I was lucky, I'd be an apprentice to a trade and doing what amounted to slave work for several years (oddly enough, this practice continues in academia; the poor bastards are known as "grad students").
If I were unlucky, I'd be off killing and being killed by some foreign person in a war of dubious value. I'd almost certainly be killed; I'm nearsighted and without glasses being widely available, I wouldn't be very good at noticing that archer lining up his shot 35 yards away. And if I wasn't killed on the field, I'd die of my wounds (which, historically speaking, have always killed more soldiers than the actual battles).
I'm 30 now, which in the 1600s would make me, if not exactly old, certainly getting up there -- the life expectancy right up to the 20th century was in the mid-30s, thanks to childhood mortality, disease, war, plague and the general crappiness of the age. I'd certainly look older than I do now -- life was harder then. Frankly, if I were back in the 1600s, the only thing I'd have to be thankful for was that I wasn't born a woman. As bad as the men had it, the women had it, oh, much, much worse.
You might say that in comparison to past ages, people today are soft -- that we at the top of the human pyramid have it far too easy. Well, yes; yes we do. Personally, I like to think that my ancestors wouldn't have it any other way, and that if they still exist in some spiritual plane, that they look down and see me typing away and think to themselves: Amazing. 30 years old and he still has all his teeth. They wouldn't think of me as soft for having those teeth (quite the opposite, in fact).
So be thankful you're here now. For an admittedly small number of us on the planet, it's the best time ever to be alive. And if you feel mildly guilty about that (why should you have it easy, when all your ancestors died at age 35, with bare gums?) then do this: Do what you can so that when your great- grandchildren ten times removed look back at today, they wonder how we could have possibly survived in such savage, unkempt times.
Best "Little" Invention of the Millennium.
Punctuation. It is perhaps the epitome of what should be regarded as a "little" invention (a category whose criteria I am forming as I write this,
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