re: Would you be alive today without modern medicine?

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For all of y'all saying yes and bragging about just ear infections and sore throats, you can thank the amoxicillin and LA-bicillin from preventing your meningitis and rheumatic heart disease.

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Not only this, but no one can really answer this honestly.

Your mom had it easier in pregnancy because of modern prenatal care, leading to you being a healthier baby. You were born in a sterile environment, and your exposure was limited during the most vulnerable days of your life. Just being served only clean water and properly cooked food could have saved your life. Also there's the exposure you were spared as a child because we now understand how contagious disease works instead of just assuming the humors were off.

Simply saying you've never had a life threatening illness doesn't really assure you wouldn't have caught one.

I was born a month early with the cord wrapped around my neck. So 50/50 on dying right out the gate.

Didn't have any major accidents as a child.

Did catch giardia at one point. Not sure if that would have killed me.

The biggest thing was developing myopia due to astigmatism. I'd be damn near blind without corrective lenses. Maybe this wouldn't have killed me if I had a good family to provide for me, but it would have made me practically useless for any task that couldn't be done right up close to my face.

My father, brother, wife, and I would likely all be dead. Bad gallbladders.

No. I'd have died (for good) around mid-November last year. The only reason I'm alive today (besides the grace of God) is modern medical science has given doctors the ability to replace faulty heart valves with this bad boy...