• PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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      3 days ago

      The pre-vaccine, pre-public health world was just kind of nuts.

      “Have a bunch of kids, because the ones who aren’t strong and lucky aren’t going to make it.”

    • marcos@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      What you mean ~300 years? Has there been some interruption since late Rome that I failed to notice?

      • BallShapedMan@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        As I understand it the period often referred to as The Black Death started in the early 1300s and ended in the late 1600s. Newton I think was mid to late 1600s. So that’s about 300 years depending on when people will argue it started and all.

        Right!?!

        • marcos@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Oh, ok. Yeah there was a worse than normal outbreak during the previous 300 years, but “plague is raging in Europe” applies just as well for the previous 1000 years.

          That said, I’m not disagreeing, 300 years should be enough to numb down a population.

          • BallShapedMan@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            For sure! Turns out open “sewers” and letting wildlife and pigs just do their thing wherever isn’t great for health.

            My thoughts were Newton didn’t see it as anything other than normal so of course he’s going on about his day. His life was the “this is fine dog” lol

    • Successful_Try543@feddit.org
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      3 days ago

      AfaIk, the novelty was, that the fractions of the rainbow, e.g. yellow, themselves do not split into a rainbow again if they are sent though a prism. That led to the conclusion that white sunlight is actually composed of light of different colours which cannot be decomposed further.

  • Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 days ago

    His discoveries kinda helped down the line. Thanks to him we learned how fast the rates of plague progression was going.

    • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
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      3 days ago

      Besides, it’s not like not studying prisms would have made the plague go away.

      There have always been wars, plagues, catastrophes. And now, the hard times are coming again. Somehow we moved forward anyway.