Reddit reviews Man and Wound in the Ancient World: A History of Military Medicine from Sumer to the Fall of Constantinople

This has always intrigued me after seeing movies and television often showing ancient soldiers suffering many wounds but surviving cause they're the hero or something. I actually found a book that's all about ancient man and medicine.

Man and Wound in the Ancient World

It's on Google Books too: Link

> If the data on wound mortality and infection are combined, a rough statistical profile of the causes of wound mortality for the ancient soldier can be produced. Of a hundred soldiers wounded in action, 13.8 percent would die of shock and bleeding within two to six hours of being wounded. Another 6 percent would contract tetanus, and 80 percent of them would die within three to six days. Five percent would see their wounds turn gangrenous, and 80-100 percent would die within a week. Approximately 1.7 percent would contract a septicemic infection, and 83-100 percent would succumb within six to ten days. On average, then, 25 percent of wounded soldiers would die of their wounds within a week to ten days.

It also mentions that general health was better between 2500-323 BC and then didn't improve much until WWI. That's a long time. Also,

>Of every one hundred children born [in ancient times], half died before age five. Of the fifty survivors, twenty-seven died before age twenty-five; of the twenty-three survivors, nine died by age thirty-five; of the remaining fourteen, six lived to age fifty; and only three lived to see sixty.

Even if your lifespan could span 1000 years, it could still be ended just as quickly as if you lived a shorter life due to disease, wounds, and lack of medical knowledge. I think it would be safe to say that it would be an impossibility to be born in the ancient world and actually survive for 1000 years.

dan is what he calls “addicted to context”...

ever read Richard A. Gabriel?.. tremendously interesting historian.. picked this one up, highly recommend.