Ways of Dying in 1665

re: previous post on bad teeth - bacteria in the mouth seem to be the in thing at the moment - lots of great new research is finding things we didnt know before - tooth decay is a bacterial infection (the increased sugar makes them behave differently), stomach ulcers are a bacterial infection (although funny how that only came out when Zantac was out of patent...), heart attacks can be due to bacterial infection (linked with peridontal disease aka bleeding gums and the bacteria get into the blood stream).

identifying bacterial DNA from ancient calculus (hardened plaque on teeth) is going to be very informative about what diseases people had and how different their bacteria was at different times and places and with different diets. So I guess our ancestors uncleaned bad teeth might prove to be a good thing. (for us!)

Also, re: weights of loaves - they used to put lead salts in the bread to make it heavier and whiter (also in milk) - we see a huge increase in lead exposure in 18th/19th century children - that wont have helped survival rates.

Myth

For God's sake don't tell Andrew Lansley

Oh forgot to say - great thread OP!

There was also a Russian surgeon who performed his own appendicectomy here julia I wouldn't recommend that either!

R2PeePoo - I worked on the Roman lady from Spitalfields (and on plague skeletons from the Royal Mint) - the Roman lady is going to feature in a new one-off series of Meet the Ancestors - a sort of "Re-meet the Ancestors" - that Julian Richards is doing. Should be screened this year. They are going back to discoveries from the original series and finding out what new research has uncovered about them since and what questions we can answer now that we couldnt then.

apparently she doesn't advise imitation of her feat

She did WHAT???

I just googled the history of caesareans (85% maternal death rate in 1865) and came across this incredible woman - the only known person to perform a Caesarean on herself and survive!

I just finished Tina Cassidy's Birth, a History and she had some pictures of some hideous looking instruments. One was long and thin, the other like a big pair of tweezers-one to puncture the baby's skull, the other to crush it so it could be removed. Then they would cut the baby into pieces and line the pieces up on a table to ensure they got it all. One of these operations took two days.

If the pelvis was ricketic then it might be impossible to give birth unless by C-Section. So you would labour until you died and they might cut you open to get the baby out. There was a really high rate of fistulas and womb prolapses as well.

Martha Ballard was a midwife in America in the 18th century. She attended hundreds of births and only lost one or two women and a handful of babies so its not all doom and gloom. [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Midwifes-Tale-Martha-Ballard-1785-1812/dp/0679733760 her story here]

I dunno - my ex was a cow farmer. He reckoned you needed a lot of strength to get a dead calf out, but perhaps that is because once it's dead, you can afford to pull harder?

Just checked my notes and - pleasantly - what medieval midwives had were hooked, not flat, so you could hook out a baby but not so that it survived. Awful. But I suppose you'd be desperate if a woman were dying.

In reality it isn't about 'yanking' anything. Often it involves gentle pushing back between contractions and then turning the lamb, calf, piglet inside the birth canal before pulling steadily.

Forceps of one kind or another have been in use for a very long time, though. Medieval midwives had 'instruments' of various kinds. The problem is that they could easily have done more harm than good, and the baby often wouldn't survive.

I wouldn't swear to it, but I think the Egyptians had forceps.

And Scarlett - yes, it does stay with you! Disappointingly, though, I bought 'Green Darkness' which is by her and had to give up ... it was shite! It was meant to be about Celia de Bohun (descendant of Eleanor who I have a soft spot for but who is a right cow in Seton's eyes). It was just ... awful.

That's what I thought Beta.

Surely common sense says it's better to do it with hands rather than stick a massive great metal implement in there?

They were invented in the 16th century but kept secret for 100 years.

Tunip - "Did the midwife somehow get her hand in there and yank?"

That is exactly what farmers do when sheep, pigs, cows, etc get into difficulties during birth. I imagine that the methods were pretty similar in human or animal back then.

They were using forceps in Victorian times. I know this because of novels.

But what did they do when a baby got stuck before there were ventouses or forceps? Did the midwife somehow get her hand in there and yank?

If you'd been in that situation just after the forceps had been invented I imagine you'd have been at risk of it making things a lot worse.

When i was about ten (50 years ago) i (alone) used to visit my mother on the women's ward in a Birmingham hospital. A shelf ran around the ward on which were jars filled with babies of varying sizes. I remember the disfigurements to this day. They never scared me just fascinated me.

Everyone I know who has read Katherine wants to go back in time and shag John of Gaunt.

though the cunt who gave me chlamydia probably would have had syphilis in the olden days...

Oh, and I had an infected tooth pulled as a teenager, forgot about that one!

Hmm, I'm not sure how dead I would be...

-I had a hernia operated on when I was about three. Dont think this in itself would have killed me in time (?) but would be interested to know if it would have an affect on childbirth later in life and make that potentially more fatal?
-I had tonsillitis A LOT as a child and had a tonsillectomy at about 8. Probably dead a few times over with that.
-I've had chickenpox twice, measles once and mumps once. Four more possible deaths.
-One dose of (symptomless) chlamydia. No idea how dead that would have made me long term, I would guess though that they didnt even know it existed?
-Mild asthma (probably not bad enough to kill me on its own) and several chest infections (though they could)
-Childbirth, ventouse delivery. Most probably dead again.

On the other hand, haha, no pun intended... I have broken four fingers. This could have been a problem except that two were from a car door and two from a fridge. Neither would have existed, so no broken fingers for me