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Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
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Today, about 20% of the US population (same goes for the UK population, BTW) is functionally illiterate. There are various definitions of this, but in essence, being functionally illiterate means having a reading ability at or below that of an average eight-year old. If you do a readibility measure of many of the more popular newspapers, you'll find they are aimed at someone with a reading age of about eight years (albeit with a few words that you hope most eight year-olds don't possess). This is not coincidence.
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The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
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This is roughly accurate (it depends to some extent on which part of the USA you're considering), but it's worth adding that life expectancy is one of the most misunderstood of statistics. The figure refers to the age at which half of a birth cohort (i.e. people born in the same block of time) have died. A low life expectancy implies to many people that people didn't grow old in times past. This isn't quite true. A very large proportion of the people who died before 47 died during birth, infancy, or early childhood. If you survived childhood and adolescence, your life expectancy in the 1900s was 'only' about seven years less than today. In fact, the older the person you consider the less the difference between the remaining life expectancy of someone in 1900 and someone today. And if you want a pause for thought - even today, outside the developed world most people die before their fifth birthday.
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Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
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It probably made little difference. Many historians reckon that until the 20th century, medical doctors (even the qualified ones) overall did more harm than leaving the patient untreated or reliant on folk remedies.