Do we want to go back in time?

 

 

Today’s world is a hostile place for people with environmental illnesses (MCS or EHS). Would living in another age be better?

 

Keywords:    multiple chemical sensitivity, MCS, electromagnetic hypersensitivity, EMR syndrome, time travel, history

 

 

About the picture

The picture shows the author’s grandfather and his brother-in-law with two sturdy draft horses that they used to plow the fields.

 

Wishing for a simpler time

Several people with MCS or EHS have said they were “born in the wrong century,” or otherwise thought living in an age with less chemicals or electronics would be better.

 

If we could travel back in time to live in a less hostile age, when would that be?

 

The chemical revolution really got going in the 1950s, with the availability of many chemicals, such as pesticides (originally developed for use as weapons of war) and plastics (also rapidly developed during World War II). In the decades that followed, pesticides became widely used in agriculture.

 

All food used to be what is now called “organic,” but soon “normal food” became foods treated with pesticides and other chemicals.

 

In America, people “learned” that a dandelion on their lawn was unacceptable. Seeing an ant or a spider in their homes or in a store was seen as a threat. Both “required” the use of chemicals to deal with. (The Europeans are still much more relaxed about these things).

 

Instead of hardwood floors, homes in America and Europe became covered with carpets made of plastics and treated with all sorts of chemicals to resist stains, fires, and mold.

 

Clothes were made of plastic and treated with dozens of chemicals to make the fabric softer, more durable, wrinkle free, static free, and much else. Perfumes went from something a woman might use on a special occasion, to something both sexes pour on daily, and that is added to the air in houses, public restrooms, and in clothes, personal care products, medical supplies, and so much more.

 

Then came the wireless revolution, which started in the late 1990s, when cell towers became a common feature in the cities. A decade later most people owned a cell phone, and wireless networking quickly became the norm.

 

The father of environmental medicine, Dr. Theron Randolph, noticed the first cases of chemical sensitivity in the 1950s. It was people who got sick from eating fruit sprayed with pesticides and from breathing the air in the cities.

 

Others have reported that electromagnetic hypersensitivity started showing up in the 1980s.

 

So, should we set our clock back to the 1930s?

 

In those days, there were already a lot of cars and trucks in the cities, and their engines were primitive. That meant a lot of air pollution in the streets.

 

The houses in the cities were poorly insulated and heated with coal or kerosene, which further polluted the air. The London smog was infamous for creating dense fogs of smoke particles that killed thousands of people.

 

In the cities, people cooked their foods with “city gas,” which was dangerous carbon monoxide, made by heating up coal. In the country, people had wood stoves in their kitchens.

 

Mold was common in the poorly heated houses, that typically had just one or two sources of heat. The bedrooms were often not heated at all.

 

Medicine was rather primitive. They did have x-rays and anesthesia, but there were no antibiotics. A lot of people died from infections, whether following surgery or from a simple splinter in their hands.

 

The typical lifespan in the 1930s was only about 61 years. By then, many had no teeth left.

 

Cancer was rare in those days, but if you got it, it was a sure death sentence.

 

Factory work was brutal, with long hours, low pay, terrible indoor air quality, lots of noise from the machines, and few safety features to protect fingers. Asbestos was considered a miracle mineral, believed to be safe, and widely used with no safety precautions.

 

Living on a farm would greatly improve the outdoor air quality, but it was hard work seven days a week. Cows were milked by hand, tractors were only for wealthy farmers, horses had to be tended to, washing machines were new and expensive, firewood had to be chopped by hand. Free time for hobbies was simply unknown, except on winter nights when there might be time to read a book.

 

Despite the brutal work in the factories, a lot of farm hands still migrated to the cities. It was still better than farm work.

 

There were no wireless devices in the homes, other than a radio receiver. The main use of electricity was incandescent light bulbs; few houses had electric stoves.

 

There was no digital electronics and thus no dirty electricity, but American houses were commonly wired with “knob and tube,” which created high electrical and magnetic fields. (This system was not used in Europe or Asia, except Japan).

 

Going further back in time would mean even more primitive health care, and even more reliance on home-made products, such as clothes and household items.

 

A more modern compromise?

It’s tough to choose a better point in time. It will surely depend on personal preferences, and circumstances.

 

How about the year 1995?

 

At that time, most people accepted that smoking was a bad thing, even for those standing next to smokers. In America, some workplaces had already banned smoking inside their offices, and most restaurants had non-smoking sections. Smoking was banned on aircraft. Educated people had largely dropped the habit, which peaked in 1977.

 

There was some awareness that indoor air quality mattered, following the 1990 debacle when a hundred people got sick from new carpets at the EPA headquarters in Washington, DC.

 

Health food stores were showing up, offering limited selections of organic foods, which were still a decade away from going mainstream. Cars had catalytic converters, and ran on unleaded gasoline, so their pollution was much less. Diesel engines were only somewhat improved.

 

Fragrances were not yet everywhere, as became the norm soon after.

 

Cell phones were a luxury, essentially only used by business people in the big cities. Cell towers were quite rare. The new 2G service was rolled out across the world in the next few years, which got the wireless revolution going.

 

It was the year where Microsoft introduced its Windows 95 operating system, which made a user-friendly computer more affordable (though it still cost about $2000 in 1995 money).

 

The internet opened up to the public and for commercial use. People had to use dialup, but it worked fine since websites didn’t use videos, or a lot of pictures and gimmicks. It was used as a library and for e-mail, not for mindless entertainment.

 

Printed mailorder catalogs were the norm, as was personal letters and envelopes. You didn’t need a computer if you didn’t want one.

 

There was not today’s anxiety that children must be instantly accessible on the phone while at school. It was fine that a teacher called if there was a problem.

 

The epidemic of food allergies among school children was just beginning. Epinephrine auto-injectors (“EpiPens”) were rare.

 

MCS was well established by 1995, with support groups, newsletters, doctors, and companies selling air purifiers and much else. The acceptance was no worse than today (sad to say).

 

But chemically it was not good. Pesticide use was indiscriminate in America, including some types that soon after were banned, such as Dursban. Few people ever questioned the use.

 

Many products, such as televisions and computers, were loaded with flame retardants and other chemicals, which have since quietly been phased out of electronics.

 

Easier if born then

It is not easy to go back in time. Today’s society, with its many faults, also offers a lot of services and conveniences we now take for granted.

 

Television was not available in the 1930s, and people were too busy to sit and stare at it for hours every day anyway.

 

Today’s people are not so robust as back then. It was rare people had allergies, so they had no problem living in moldy houses, working in dusty haylofts, cleaning out smelly barns, and using wood stoves in the kitchens.

 

It would all be much easier if one was born back then.

 

Perhaps natural selection will eventually make our species more adaptable to polluted air, water, and food. And to radiation levels millions of times higher than was the case just two generations ago.

 

Or the diseases of modern life, such as autism, cancer, infertility asthma, allergies, eczema, depression, MCS, EHS, ME/CFS, etc. may continue to strike more and more people, so humanity eventually have to take prevention seriously. Perhaps it will, once the cost of dealing with it all becomes too high, so the politicians will have to act. But that is still far in the future.

 

 

More information

Other editorial type articles on www.eiwellspring.org/misc.html.

 

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