Death from Blood Poisoning Prior to Anti-Biotics

Death from blood poisoning prior to anti-biotics was quite common. A cat scratch almost did in one of my grandfathers. Britton Hadden, a co-founder of Time Inc. with Henry Luce (a relative I met once working at a Yale reunion) died of complications of influenza:

http://www.smokershistory.com/Time.htm

Small injuries used to be terrors for mothers of small children. It was anti-biotics that I am still taking that bought me back a few weeks ago.

Sulfa was one of the first of these and needs to be taken with much fluid when used for urinary infections. It killed my other grandfather for whom I am named when he developed pneumonia when he was only 63 -- too little fluid which destroyed his kidneys.

Skin infections are still not to be taken lightly:

"S. aureus most commonly causes skin infections like folliculitis, boils, impetigo, and cellulitis that are limited to a small area of a person's skin. ..."

http://kidshealth.org/teen/infections/bacterial_viral/staph.html
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy cited by Machiavelli)
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Ed Kent [blind copies]