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Along similar lines, I think about this for any post apocalyptic scenario that disrupts supply lines. Even if things are okay in terms of food, I regularly take medication that one would presume would be hard to get without modern society. In that situation, if I broke or even scratched my glasses, it seems very unlikely I would find functional replacements. I'm not physically disabled, but I am very limited, so in any real conflict I would lose. Quickly.
In prehistory or any future environment like that, I wouldn't last long.
In most of prehistory (and still some parts of the world today), you'd have a tribe/society that would choose to help you and look after you.. Fuck, even herds of bovines do this to some extent.. It's kind of shit that we're letting the rich stop that from happening.
Yep we have evidence in the paleolithic of individuals without teeth living for several years after they lost them. That means their community was chewing their food for them. Which is crazy to think about.
Not to mention there is also evidence of severely disabled people, typically from injuries, surviving full lives. These individuals mobility would have been very limited, but people jus took care of them. Because that's what you did.
That last part would be of the biggest impact to me. I've had two major bone breakages in my life - my arm when I was seven, my ankle when I was thirty-four. Even over that time period, the treatment seemed to improve a great deal, though neither ever fully healed, which is why my mobility is limited even now. Even putting aside things like infections, I can't imagine getting a broken bone treated without painkillers and hope I never have to. Resetting a dislocated shoulder without was bad enough.
Also though, when I broke my ankle I was alone in the snow. If cell phones weren't a thing, I'm not sure I would even have been able to get treatment and it's possible that exposure could have made things much much worse.
Fortunately, I had my cell phone and we weren't in prehistory, so things went significantly better than they could have. Now I just have to worry about the future.
Infections were a big killer before antibiotics. We have vaccination these days because of the horrible things that used to happen without them. Just having clean warm water and soap readily available was a luxury back then.
And yet some missininformed people think vaccines are evil.