[HN Gopher] Health risks of travel in early-modern Britain
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       Health risks of travel in early-modern Britain
        
       Author : Petiver
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2023-09-20 04:53 UTC (18 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (dralun.wordpress.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (dralun.wordpress.com)
        
       | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
       | Travel is still risky. Automobile accidents are, by a substantial
       | margin, the leading cause of death in young people.
       | 
       | It may have been somewhat more risky back then -- in terms of
       | fatalities per mile traveled, if not fatalities per hour traveled
       | -- but I don't think that's perfectly clear. A fall from a horse,
       | which has happened to me more than once, is a lot less injurious
       | than an automobile accident. It would be interesting to see a
       | comparison table.
       | 
       | Besides, the risks didn't stop every enterprising English and
       | Protestant German youth from embarking upon the Grand Tour:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
        
         | nugget wrote:
         | I'm pretty sure the opioid epidemic is the leading cause of
         | death in the US. Enormous numbers of Americans are dying from
         | fentanyl and other poisons, but the media doesn't like to cover
         | it and the Government doesn't like to talk about it.
        
         | kunwon1 wrote:
         | One might argue that a fall from a horse in the 17th century is
         | more injurious than an automobile accident in the 21st
        
           | AlbertCory wrote:
           | we don't have much data for then, but we do have it for now.
           | See my other comment.
        
         | bbarnett wrote:
         | A fall from a horse, with mild injury, was far more serious
         | though.
         | 
         | No antibiotics, and geneally no operating for internal body
         | cavity injuries.
        
         | bemusedthrow75 wrote:
         | s/enterprising/independently wealthy/
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | AlbertCory wrote:
         | I don't have a dog in this fight, honest! /s
         | 
         | but I got curious, so as a fun math exercise: go crazy!
         | HORSES:
         | 
         | https://horsesonly.com/horse-riding-accidents/
         | 
         | > According to the research (2002) on horseback riding danger
         | statistics, the rate of hospital admissions for equestrians is
         | 11.8/1000 riders or, assuming one hour per day riding on
         | average, 0.49/1000 hours of riding. (1)
         | 
         | > 7. 81% of equestrians get injured at some point in their
         | riding career.                        CARS:
         | 
         | https://www.valuepenguin.com/car-accident-statistics#injurie...
         | 
         | we have some numbers that don't quite compare:
         | 
         | >In 2020, Americans had a 1 in 63 chance of getting in a car
         | accident.
         | 
         | > At least one driver or passenger is injured in 43% of car
         | crashes. There were 2,282,015 injuries reported in 2020 --
         | that's 6,252 per day, or four per minute.
        
           | thmsths wrote:
           | So cars are roughly 10 times safer than riding horses? And
           | that's without accounting for the difference in distance
           | travelled. The number of injuries for the car are
           | staggeringly high because of how common they are. I bet if we
           | enacted policies that made owning a horse as likely as owning
           | a car, we would also find that every minutes a several horse
           | riders get injured.
        
             | A_D_E_P_T wrote:
             | > So cars are roughly 10 times safer than riding horses?
             | 
             | Well, all of that refers to injury -- which may be serious,
             | but may also be very mild. A sprained ankle is an injury.
             | Horseback riding is a lot like a contact sport; it's very
             | easy to pick up musculoskeletal injuries from getting
             | pulled or thrown (or kicked, which has also happened to me
             | once,) but only a very small proportion of those lead to
             | serious and lasting disability.
             | 
             | If we look solely at fatalities, a different picture might
             | emerge. Automobile injuries are, I surmise, more likely to
             | be very serious or fatal. And, of course, motorcycles are
             | in a different plane of existence entirely.
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | I would also make a guess that cars operated at the same
             | speed (with current safety equipment) that cars would be
             | closer to 100 times safer than horses. The entire velocity
             | squared multiples quickly.
        
               | thmsths wrote:
               | I think so too. Motorcycles are the closest thing we have
               | to a very fast horse and according to [1] they are 35
               | times more likely to result in a fatal crash than a car.
               | 
               | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_safety
        
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       (page generated 2023-09-20 23:00 UTC)