Modern medicine erases the horrors of widespread child mortality often depicted in gutting detail in 19th-century literature.

In the 1800s, ~50% of U.S. children didn’t live past age 5. An English scholar reflects on how undermining #vaccines risks reviving those forgotten tragedies. theconversation.com/infectious… @bookstodon #Bookstodon @histodons #Histodons #PublicHealth #19thCenturyLiterature #VictorianEra #Jane Eyre

Infectious diseases killed Victorian children at alarming rates — their novels highlight the fragility of public health today

Between 40% and 50% of children didn’t live past 5 in the US during the 19th century. Popular authors like Charles Dickens documented the common but no less gutting grief of losing a child.

^{The Conversation}