The Toughest

I saw the armor of an ancient king who used to go on war somewhere around 16th century. A modern man would simply buckle under its weight.

I think people of old are the strongest because they don't need to rely on some work out a machine to gain strength. They use simple tools to work out.

I'm not very tough there days and my pain tolerance is very low but I rarely take any medications as they don't work on me. So, I often have to endure and scream the pain away. Life is life!

Not many lived beyond say thirty?

@ yes I think so.If you look back of all the hunky men back them.The gladiators surely was one of them.

People now are spoiled with so much automation, quick, easy ways of doing things, fast delivery of almost anything we want. Physical labor was the only way to get things done, back then! Emotionally, physically, and mentally, people were definitely a lot stronger, back then.

They were because they had to be. We humans are capable of far more than we imagine. Talkin about tough..my great grandmother was out plowing the fields when she was 9 months pregnant..She went in the house gave birth to her twin children and then back out to th fields..can you even imagine?? I could barely get through the birth of one in the hospital..

I'm a wuss when it comes to physical endurance - my survival chances in the Yukon or other wildernesses would be very low

Yes, I think they were stronger. If you think which kind of hard work they did every day, our modern men would die in a month.

No, I don't believe men several hundred years ago were tougher, either mentally or physically, than we are now... I believe they had a decidedly different mind-set than we use today. If you gave a modern man time to build up his strength as our ancestors did, grueling work, diet low in fat, more vegetation with some meats, the man would build up the same endurance our ancestors displayed. (Remember, humans have been gaining in height for the last few hundred years as our diets became better and some rough medicines became known and sparingly used.) Not so modern man did have some analgesics such as opium powder, willow bark (aspirin) and, in ancient India, the soma plant, All were used as pain relievers and when concentrated, opium powder and soma juice were used as anesthetics for crude surgery. Laudanum was used to deaden pain when pulling teeth and to relieve general pain (in a milder concentration). You are right, whiskey was used when someone was undergoing crude surgery, too. The patient was given whiskey until he passed out. Then the "doctor" worked on him and hoped the patient woke up again.

Give me modern science any day! I'm a big chicken, although I did manage to suffer through anesthesia that didn't take effect once.

Yes, you needed to be tough to endure that kind of pain back then. I'm glad for modern medicines as well. Farm production is also easier with all the machines that came with the industrial age. No more doing it by hand.

Certainly people had to be very tough in those days. I'm glad we've progressed past whisky for pain.

I don't think we can take their pain. We are ice cream babies compared to them - melt under the sun! Every generation has to go through a baptism of fire to survive. We can be under rude shock if have to give up the comforts that we take for granted - siva

Yes, definitely I believe, then there was a competition for struggle for existence and there was survival of fittest. in absence of modern inventions and discoveries humnan being only had physical strength to defend himself from all odds! Thanks for the thought provoking discussion dear @Kandae11!

I can't imagine what they had to endure.

before, the only diseases, according to my mother, were tuberculosis and asthma. cancer was a rarity. now, there are the HFMD, HIV, AIDS, and all types of cancer.

If I had to be I think I could be. Yes the people on the old days were stronger, nowadays everyone is a wimp.

Don't forget that the life expectancy was 20-30 years that time. It's quite different than now when the life expectancy is 60 years (world avarage).

for sure then they have to do everything by hand no machines to help