<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">What accounts for the largest part of overall health/longevity increase is a VERY different question from the subject line. I would point out that many of the supposed non-medicinal contributors were invented or greatly strengthened and perfected due to our understanding of medical science.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>- samantha</DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Mar 13, 2006, at 9:17 PM, Russell Wallace wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite">On 3/14/06, <B class="gmail_sendername">"Hal Finney"</B> <<A href="mailto:hal@finney.org">hal@finney.org</A>> wrote:<DIV><SPAN class="gmail_quote"></SPAN><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> One of the other sources I found at the library was a health economics<BR>textbook that Robin recommended on his web page for his students: The<BR>Economics of Health and Health Care, by Folland, Goodman, and Stano.<BR>This has a nice overview of the areas of consensus and controversy <BR>regarding the causes of the dramatic decline in mortality over the past<BR>250 years.</BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR> Good article, thanks! Not very specific about actual causes, but it would seem consistent with the idea that things like hygiene, sanitation and quarantine account for the largest part of the improvement (with improved nutrition helping, but not enough to account for the bulk).<BR> </DIV></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">extropy-chat mailing list</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat">http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>