This is a minor and general point but "average life expectancy" can be a
somewhat misleading term. It is not all the longer people expected to live
or what they considered old age. There have always been people living to
the same ages we regard as very old today. Just not so many people did live
so long.
The averages of centuries past are brought down by all the infant and
women's childbirth mortality as well as that from other infections and
diseases that killed otherwise healthy people at young ages before
antibiotics and immunizations, etc. If a person survived childhood and
managed to avoid infectious diseases one could still have a reasonable
expectation to live to be 70 or 75 or even more. There was less heart
disease than today--President Eisenhower's physician reportedly said that
during his medical education in the early part of the 20th century a heart
attack was considered a rare event. Supposedly the American diet changed for
the worse in the 1890s with a sharp increase in sugar consumption and 20
years later the increase in heart attacks began. Food for thought anyway...
: ) --Pam Berger
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As the average life span was 45-50 years, I would doubt that ONLY men of
considerable years would be appointed churchwardens.