How a modern person could really make a difference in the past

[king of nowhere]

there's little doubt that a single modern person waking up in the past wwould be pretty underwhelming. all of our knowledge, but no one of us, alone, can recreate any of our moder technology. it just takes way too many people working in different fields. so, while we know of cars, planes, telephones, we would not be able to do any of that.

however, I realized there is actually one thing that every layman knows, and that would actually - if he could get the people to listen - save millions of lives with a bit of modern knowledge. And that's germs and hygiene.

in a time when almost half of the children died of sickness before becoming adult, some simple higienic tips could make a huge difference.

when the plague first struck, it killed one third of the european population. later epidemics were more limited, because people had learned - by trial and error - to quarantine the affected areas. someone who could tell from start that the plague is spread through the bites of fleas, avoid all traveling to affected areas, stay away from the clothes of the infected and all that stuff, they could have turned the black death to a regional outbreak.

how about telling the doctors that illness are caused by tiny creatures, too small to see, but putting their instruments over a fire for a few seconds kill those creatures so they can operate more safely? how many lives would that save?

during the golden age of sailing, sailors were struck by scurvy. it took a century before they - again, by trial and error - figured out that they could prevent it with citrus juice. more millions would be saved by giving the answer.

and while very few people would be able to use penicillin, most of us know that there's a kind of mold that can kill most germs, and with this information and some experimentation the scientists of the time could have figured out antibiotics centuries in advance.

so, while none of us would be able to make any of our modern technological devices, any of us would totally be able to make a huge difference - if we could get ourselves heard, at least.

[alder24]

23 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

there's little doubt that a single modern person waking up in the past wwould be pretty underwhelming. all of our knowledge, but no one of us, alone, can recreate any of our moder technology. it just takes way too many people working in different fields. so, while we know of cars, planes, telephones, we would not be able to do any of that.

however, I realized there is actually one thing that every layman knows, and that would actually - if he could get the people to listen - save millions of lives with a bit of modern knowledge. And that's germs and hygiene.

in a time when almost half of the children died of sickness before becoming adult, some simple higienic tips could make a huge difference.

when the plague first struck, it killed one third of the european population. later epidemics were more limited, because people had learned - by trial and error - to quarantine the affected areas. someone who could tell from start that the plague is spread through the bites of fleas, avoid all traveling to affected areas, stay away from the clothes of the infected and all that stuff, they could have turned the black death to a regional outbreak.

how about telling the doctors that illness are caused by tiny creatures, too small to see, but putting their instruments over a fire for a few seconds kill those creatures so they can operate more safely? how many lives would that save?

during the golden age of sailing, sailors were struck by scurvy. it took a century before they - again, by trial and error - figured out that they could prevent it with citrus juice. more millions would be saved by giving the answer.

and while very few people would be able to use penicillin, most of us know that there's a kind of mold that can kill most germs, and with this information and some experimentation the scientists of the time could have figured out antibiotics centuries in advance.

so, while none of us would be able to make any of our modern technological devices, any of us would totally be able to make a huge difference - if we could get ourselves heard, at least.

That's a great point. I fully agree. But I think you underestimate what people of medieval time already knew or already did in terms of hygiene (which was addressed in the book).

Before the germ theory, the common knowledge was that illnesses are caused by "bad air", the miasma theory, developed in ancient Greece. Quarantine has also been practiced since ancient times and was very effectively used since the beginning of the 1300s plague pandemics (that's the origin of the name quarantine). They weren't that far behind, they just needed more basics to make the difference. Clean water is one of those basics. Proper waste management. Isolating ill people for healthy ones, or even covering face and mouth with simple masks.

Soap and water were already used back then, mostly water alone. While better soap was more of a luxury item, there is a way to make a cheap soap from wood ashes, that can be easily made in every household - teach them to always have this soap and use them all the time. Moreover, just telling people to clean hands with soap before delivering a baby will make a huge difference for child and mother survival, just like in our times.

About scurvy I was under the impression that they knew they needed fruits but the problem was fruits spoil very fast. In a multi week journey they just couldn't have citrus every day, fruits and vegetables would just rot and spoil, and that was the problem.

You can even develop a vaccine against smallpox  - the first vaccine was just infecting people with far less deadly cowpox which made them immune to smallpox. And smallpox was an extremely deadly and common illness, eradicating it as early as medieval times would save countless lives.

Also the first plaque was the Justinian Plague in 540 AD, and there were many more localized outbreaks of plague before the Black Death of 1347.

Some of us might be able to create electricity, it's just a spinning magnet in a coil, but what's next? How many of us know how to make a simple lightbulb? Not to mention something more. We can make electricity but we won’t be able to make use of it. At best an electric motor could be made - it's a lot already. Some might help with constructing better buildings, use of concrete (used in ancient Rome) with reinforcement and stuff like that. Just our knowledge that something was made like gunpowder, might help inventors introduce some technology earlier. But you're right, all of us can help and improve the hygiene of their time, saving lifes on an unimaginable scale.

Edit:

Or you can push vikings to colonize America in the 6th century or so. They did it around the year 1000. Tell them that there is Iceland, Greenland and from there America. With the simple knowledge of how Earth's continents look, you can start the era of exploration thousand years earlier. Many of us know some large distances, like British isles length or how wide is America, or our country dimensions, many of us know radius of Earth - with this we can easily create more or less accurate map of Earth and drive exploration and colonization forward.

Edited June 22, 2023 by alder24

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's a great point. I fully agree. But I think you underestimate what people of medieval time already knew or already did in terms of hygiene (which was addressed in the book).Before the germ theory, the common knowledge was that illnesses are caused by "bad air", the miasma theory, developed in ancient Greece. Quarantine has also been practiced since ancient times and was very effectively used since the beginning of the 1300s plague pandemics (that's the origin of the name quarantine). They weren't that far behind, they just needed more basics to make the difference. Clean water is one of those basics. Proper waste management. Isolating ill people for healthy ones, or even covering face and mouth with simple masks.

[...]

Also the first plaque was the Justinian Plague in 540 AD, and there were many more localized outbreaks of plague before the Black Death of 1347.

my understanding is that they developed quarantine after the black death, which is why later plague epidemics were far less deadly.

as for the justinian plague, accordiing to my sources it was most likely smallpox, but it's uncertain. with many ancient epidemics, the descriptions of symptoms just aren't good enough to give a sure diagnosis. especially because most of those viruses mutated over time and they were different back then from what they are now.

you are, of course, absolutely right in that they just didn't have access to clean water or the technology to clean water on a large scale. even then, there's some additional tips they could have received. even as late as 1800 doctors were dissecting corpses and then helping childbirthing, without washing their hands.

Quote

About scurvy I was under the impression that they knew they needed fruits but the problem was fruits spoil very fast. In a multi week journey they just couldn't have citrus every day, fruits and vegetables would just rot and spoil, and that was the problem.

actually, the full story is that: they knew they needed fresh food, and they were trying for alternatives. they tried orange juice, that would have worked - it keeps, unlike the fruit itself. however, since the acidic juice would corrode wood, they stored it in copper casks. unfortunately, copper destroys vitamin C. So the juice had no effect, the creww still got scurvy, and they penned out juices as ineffective for another century.
however, while I expect the average joe to know the importance of vitamins, the one above is a very obscure bit of knowledge. So I can envision John telling them to bring citrus juice, and it being ineffective, and John being completely stumped. but maybe with somebody with weird - but proven - future knowledge insisting, maybe they'd try again and

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eventually figure out the flask thing before another century.

Or you can push vikings to colonize America in the 6th century or so. They did it around the year 1000. Tell them that there is Iceland, Greenland and from there America. With the simple knowledge of how Earth's continents look, you can start the era of exploration thousand years earlier.

 

good point. sucks for the natives, but sooner or later it was doomed to happen, it may as well be sooner - wait, the natives will have a better chance resisting an invasion by people that haven't yet invented gunpowder and full plate armor, so as much as it sounds weird, you're doing them a favor too.

[alder24]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

my understanding is that they developed quarantine after the black death, which is why later plague epidemics were far less deadly.

There are likely multiple factors that contributed to the lessening of the spread of plague, like increased immunity, improvement in sanitation and nutrition, rats developing immunity or reduced number of rats or even dominant rat species changing etc. Not just one single factor.

Quarantine was used by Venetians since the early days of the Black Death, they enforced 40 days of quarantine (since the name, it means forty days) for incoming ships, which was precisely what was needed as bubonic plague has a 37 days period from infection to death. But quarantine similar to this was practiced even earlier, in muslim world since the 11th century or for people with leprosy far longer (the Bible even teaches to isolate people suffering like that).

Of course, it's not like quarantine was used everywhere to prevent spread of black death, or was always effective - it wasn't like that. You would need to educate people to enforce already existing methods of quarantine and social isolation in the event of disease outbreak. There is a lot to do but you have solid foundations (depending on the time period).

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

as for the justinian plague, accordiing to my sources it was most likely smallpox

That was bubonic plague, confirmed DNA samples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plague_of_Justinian#Genetics_of_the_Justinian_plague_strain

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

good point. sucks for the natives, but sooner or later it was doomed to happen, it may as well be sooner - wait, the natives will have a better chance resisting an invasion by people that haven't yet invented gunpowder and full plate armor, so as much as it sounds weird, you're doing them a favor too.

Early gunpowder weapons weren't that accurate. They still rely mostly on melee combat and pike formations. But it doesn't matter, they still won't stand any chance. Mesoamerican empires wouldn't be even founded, and even in our times when conquistadores came, they had stone tools and weapons, no metal at all (which makes their architecture so much more impressive). Only Incas had copper and bronze tools but that was in the 15th century. They stand no chance against a simple chainmail. 

But after introducing proper hygiene culture, smallpox vaccines and other methods of preventing the spread of illnesses, you will limit the spread of disease to native population, which was the main killer of the colonization era (by a loooot). And because first contacts were "mostly" peaceful, you can trade this knowledge to natives as fast as possible, so they can also develop necessary hygiene culture.

And going even further, after your medical revolution is proven to be extremely effective and saving lives, people will start to listen to you. You can slowly start social engineering and introduce some basic human rights - which might bear fruits in the period of colonization, as natives would be treated as conquered humans, not some primitive barbarians or heathens. They will be conquered, but at least treated as peasants and citizens.

Edited June 22, 2023 by alder24

[bmcclure7]

On 6/22/2023 at 11:18 AM, king of nowhere said:

my understanding is that they developed quarantine after the black death, which is why later plague epidemics were far less deadly.

as for the justinian plague, accordiing to my sources it was most likely smallpox, but it's uncertain. with many ancient epidemics, the descriptions of symptoms just aren't good enough to give a sure diagnosis. especially because most of those viruses mutated over time and they were different back then from what they are now.

you are, of course, absolutely right in that they just didn't have access to clean water or the technology to clean water on a large scale. even then, there's some additional tips they could have received. even as late as 1800 doctors were dissecting corpses and then helping childbirthing, without washing their hands.

actually, the full story is that: they knew they needed fresh food, and they were trying for alternatives. they tried orange juice, that would have worked - it keeps, unlike the fruit itself. however, since the acidic juice would corrode wood, they stored it in copper casks. unfortunately, copper destroys vitamin C. So the juice had no effect, the creww still got scurvy, and they penned out juices as ineffective for another century.
however, while I expect the average joe to know the importance of vitamins, the one above is a very obscure bit of knowledge. So I can envision John telling them to bring citrus juice, and it being ineffective, and John being completely stumped. but maybe with somebody with weird - but proven - future knowledge insisting, maybe they'd try again and

good point. sucks for the natives, but sooner or later it was doomed to happen, it may as well be sooner - wait, the natives will have a better chance resisting an invasion by people that haven't yet invented gunpowder and full plate armor, so as much as it sounds weird, you're doing them a favor too.

You are mistaken, quarantine is the earliest tricks humans discovered to fight disease. It origins stretch all the way into pre history. 

People of the past weren't idiots they could till that when one person got sick his associates got sick soon after.  They could  figure the rest from there. 

Edited August 5, 2023 by bmcclure7

[Treamayne]

Interesting thought experiment. While hygiene is critical, I would say the better method to instigate vast improvement early would be to recreate (or bring back) a rudimentary printing press. Imagine what mass-produced text centuries before the Gutenburg Bible could achieve. Literacy increases, scientific learning, reduction or negation of the Dark Ages, etc.

Edited April 11 by Treamayne
SPAG

[alder24]

19 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Interesting thought experiemnt. While hygiene is critical, I would say the better method to instigate vast improment early would be to recreate (or bring back) a rudimentary printing press. Imagine what mass-produced text centuries before the Gutenburg Bible could achieve. Literacy increases, scientific learning, reduction or negation of the Dark Ages, etc.

That's a good idea. Pushing it even further, what about a basic steam engine? Heat up a sealed cauldron with a pipe loop exiting it, with a turbine on the end of it attached to a shaft, the loop would return to the cauldron in a pool of water to cool it down and there you go. I don't know how steam engines actually work, I would try doing something like that, without pistons etc. First implementations of a steam engine was done as early as during Roman times, you certainly can play with it and create something that will work. If you take your time to do research you could actually create a proper steam engine and revolutionize manufacturing 1000 years earlier.

[king of nowhere]

51 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Interesting thought experiemnt. While hygiene is critical, I would say the better method to instigate vast improment early would be to recreate (or bring back) a rudimentary printing press.

20 minutes ago, alder24 said:

That's a good idea. Pushing it even further, what about a basic steam engine?

I don't know how viable those are. the problem with many technologies is that they require certain other prerequisites in society that are not obvious.
for printing press, I think some early idea of printing - engraving a page in wood, inking the wood, then making multiple copies of the page - already exhisted. mobile letters easily interchangable are probably the most key idea, however the whole machinery is going to require some level of mechanical proficiency. and a major problem is that for the whole thing to be worthwhile you need some scale economy. you need to make many hundreds of copies of a book. with paper being made of animal skin, rare and expensive, and with low literacy, it's hard to reach that scale economy. printing made possible an increase in literacy, but it was first an increase in literacy - and mechanical technology, and cheap paper - that made printing possible in the first place.

as for the steam engine, you yourself said it, they had some prototipes already in anciet rome. the problem is that those machines were very inefficient, and ultimately much more expensive than horses or slaves. the steam engine was made possible by further advances in mechanical technology, and by the availability of cheap coal. without massive coal mines digging up cheap coal, the steam engine is just not convenient.

not saying it cannot be done, but it's hard to accelerate progress. heck, even my idea of hygiene can backfire spectacularly; with lower mortality from disease, population would grow unchecked, until there is either some massive famine, or some massive war over food resources, or the higher population density overcomes hygiene and gives rise to a new pandemics.

[Treamayne]

Papyrus was fibers from a water plant in Ancient Egypt. The Chinese method of making paper was brought by the Moors to western Europe in the 1100s. the only reason that parchemnt and animal vellum were prefered for official scrolls was because it lasted longer at the time, and you should easily be able to implement the subtle changes discovered by Whatman and Baskerville in the 1700s (wove paper), since it was mostly a finer mesh and diffent curing agents. Even the paper mill that started paper mass production in the 1800s actually dates back to Spain in the 1200s. There shouldn't be anything in these technologies that can't be adapted/recreated early once you have a way of improving literacy and spreading information easily.

Actually, if I were the less-than-frugal-wizard in this case, I would develope (adapt) a phonetic alphabet (maybe a simplified version of the IPA) for the English of the time, so that as literacy spread, the phonetic alphabet spread with it - making it easier to achieve literacy and learn the language.

Edited August 6, 2023 by Treamayne

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

Actually, if I were the less-than-frugal-waizrd in this case, I would develope (adapt) a phonetic alphabet (maybe a simplified version of the IPA) for the English of the time, so that as literacy spread, the phonetic alphabet spread with it - making it easier to achieve literacy and learn the language.

yes, please! all foreign english speakers would definitely love being able to forget pronunciation

[Treamayne]

24 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

yes, please! all foreign english speakers would definitely love being able to forget pronunciation

Well, I don't know about forgetting pronunciation for second+ language acquisition. There will always be phonemes in the new langauge that don't exist or are slightly different than the base language that make prununciation a chore for any new language; but I really wish English were closer-to-phonetic so that it was a bit easier to make these leaps when learning English (as a first, second, or additional language). Kind of like Common is implied to be in the Enderverse.