Compared with the way things used to be, we have it so very soft today. It's easy to take our modern conveniences for granted. We can fill our days with leisure, bustle around in comfy autos, work only 40 of the 168 hours in a week, chat with therapists, read philosophy, shop for u ece ary stuff to clog our closets and garages, climate control our dwellings and complain about the softne of our mattre es.
In the year 1000, even when agriculture had been around for some 10,000 years, life was entirely different. In Anglo-Saxon society, a precursor to the modern West, the po ibility of famine was ever-present and memories of the last one made dread and fear a part of everyday life. Looming natural disasters were co tant ecters.
Domiciles were not the neat and clean hygienic enviro we experience today. They did not smell of disinfectant or exhaust from engines wafting in the windows, but the exhaust from every ma er of farm creature and huma always hung in the air. Manure was everywhere with each one having its characteristic bouquet of fragrance. The human nose in the year 1000 could certainly not be so pri y as ours today.
Latrines were located at or near the back door and mo was toilet paper. Flies filled the dank and earthen floor homes where there were few if any hard surfaced ute ils and there was no understanding of disease vectors or antiseptic. If you dro ed food on the filthy floor, you picked it up and ate it with relish. Five baths a year for monks was thought to be fanaticism by Saxon standards of personal hygiene.
In time of famine, their law code permitted fathers to sell their so aged seven or above into slavery. Infanticide was not a crime. Communities of 40 or 50 starving emaciated people would join hands at the edge of a cliff and jump. Some chronicles report that "men ate each other." They would comb the forests for beechnuts overlooked by the wild pigs and would grind acor , bea , peas and tree bark into a flour to bake as bread. Hedgerows were scoured for paltry her , roots, nettles and gra es. "What makes bitter things sweet?" asked a Yorkshire schoolmaster. "Hunger."
A "crazy bread" of ground po ies, hemp and darnel gave our poor starving ancestors some relief with visio of paradise. Molds that laced the rye that was aging contained a variety of mycotoxi (and lysergic acid [LSD], the ychedelic drug of the "60s) that could not only make people a ear mad but would severely weaken the immune system, permitting disease to run rampant. (Note that the cause of the great plagues and epidemics was not the disease agent, but the fragile or non-existent immune system of the starving and poisoned host.)
The church would help allay the pain by harne ing hunger to iritual purposes. Lent made virtue of nece ity, coming as it did in the final months of winter when bar and larders were growing empty. Feast and famine were linked to iritual purification and gave meaning to hardship as well as hope for better times.
July was particularly tough since the ring cro had not matured and the bar were empty from the previous year's harvest. Starving was common in the balmiest month of the year when so much toil in the fields was nece ary.
Every single hour of the August harvest month was filled with urgency, since everyone knew from the pai of July what was in store for them next year if they did not fill their larders now. Work was not a right, a place to lo y for benefits and ease. It was a life and death struggle.
The contrast between then and now is astonishing. They were on the verge of starvatio we are fighting an epidemic of obesity. They might have to su ist for months on potatoes or stale bread; we have a glut of food optio at our i tant di osal. They had shortened life a and were highly vulnerable to injury and disease. We live longer but suffer cruel lingering degenerative conditio .
It is clear from a realistic view of times gone by that it was not the advent of modern medicine that brought relief, it was, as I mentioned in a previous article on SARS, it was the plumber bringing public utilities and with that the po ibility of hygiene and the trucker distributing food su lies that brought us our present long lives.
For them it was a daily struggle for survival. Nece ity and muscle ruled the day. It was the physical stre of enduring cold, harne ing 8 oxen to a plow to break new soil, hand harvesting and making their own way every moment of the day. It was the true helple e and victimization (unlike modern day contrived social "victims" clamoring for rights and handouts) from floods, droughts, winds and rain that could wipe out their only hope to avoid starvation in the coming year. For us it is a surfeit of choices requiring intellectual decisio decisio that make the difference between whether we experience full health or its slow i idious ruination by mindle ly partaking of every offering that promises yet more ease and flavor just because it is there.
Dr. Wysong is a former veterinary clinician and surgeon, college i tructor in human anatomy, physiology and the origin of life, inventor of numerous medical, surgical, nutritional, athletic and fitne products and devices, research director for the present company by his name and founder of the philanthropic Wysong I titute. He is author of The Creation-Evolution Controversy now in its eleventh printing, a new two volume set on philosophy for living entitled Thinking Matters: 1-Living Life... As If Thinking Matter 2-The Big Questio ...As If Thinking Matters, several books on nutrition, prevention and health for people and animals and over 15 years of monthly health newsletters. He may be contacted at Wysong@Wysong.net and a free su cription to his e-Health Letter is available at http://www.wysong.net.
BY:VooFox.net
- Vaccine Safety
- The Case of the Mysterious Mole
- Rejuvenating Sex And Health Naturally
- Playing the Health Odds
- Ankle Sprains - A Physical Therapists Perspective
- Urinary Incontinence In Older Adults
- How OCD Takes the Living out of Life
- Acid Reflux Disease, Causes and Effects
- Dental Insurance: Caring for Your Teeth
- Fitness From the Inside-Out