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Original poster

Ways of Dying in 1665

840 replies

TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 11:36

So I'm just copying out a weekly Bill of Mortality from London, 1665 (don't ask!)

Look at some of the ways of dying - anyone care to hazard a guess at what some of them might be?!

Plague - 7165 (IN A WEEK!!!)
Childbed - 42 Sad - just goes to show, it's all very well bemoaning medicalised childbirth/interventions/CSs but look at the alternative
Grief - 3 (Not bloody surprising - wonder what the actual medical cause was?)
Griping in the Guts - 51!
Rising of the Lights - 11 (WTF was that then? In offal, are the lights the lungs, right?)
Kingsevil - 2 (Don't ask me how I know this, but I believe this to be scrofula)
Wormes - 15 (OH EM GEE, you could die of worms )
Impostume - 11 (what?!)
Frighted - 3 (three people scared to death in a week Shock)
Winde - 3 (Oh yeah. FARTED TO DEATH)

I realise I am a bit morbid Hmm

OP posts:
ArielNonBio · 05/02/2012 10:03

I did that in Year 9. I will be forever grateful for one history teacher in our school who was completely inspiring. There were thirty of us who chose it for A level. It makes me so sad when I see how few pupils choose history now :(

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 05/02/2012 10:02

'Gem'??? Where did I get that from?! Confused

OP posts:
Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 05/02/2012 10:01

Thanks Gem - that'll be my quiet afternoon treat

Ariel it's mad to think of, isn't it? DH was saying the other day - all those years when the Western world (mostly the British Empire) thought of other cultures - Arabic or Asian or whatever - as being essentially barbarians, and yet they were doing sophisticated medical procedures when 'we' were still slinging mud at each other in caves!

I now desperately want to study the history of medicine

OP posts:
ScoutJemAndBoo · 05/02/2012 09:57

Tsp it is a radio play on radio four, i think just called diary of samuel pepys

ArielNonBio · 05/02/2012 09:57

I was thinking about that as well, Pimpers, that the Chinese and stuff seemed to know loads more about the way the body worked than we did until ages later. And so many of the seemingly archaic food laws in the Abrahamic religions and Hinduism come from basic food hygiene.

ArielNonBio · 05/02/2012 09:55

Again it was the Industrial Revolution which essentially spawned the cholera outbreaks, the worst being in the nineteenth century. It's what gave us the London sewage system, which we've still got today.

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 05/02/2012 09:51

Thumb Yes they did...strapped him down, heated cups over flames, etc. etc. One hopes it wasn't actually hurting David Haig but it sure as heck looked like it Sad

It's extraordinary how long it took the West to catch up with basic hygiene/isolation principles. I mean - if you look at the Levitical law, which is - what - 1500 years BC? - there's loads of stuff about people having 'running sores' having to be isolated from everyone else for X number of days, which was obviously about keeping infections away from the rest of the populace. And yet in 1850 a surgeons wouldn't change apron going from treating a mortally sick man to delivering a baby!

Victorians were idiots Grin

OP posts:
TunipTheVegemal · 05/02/2012 09:51

My 18th c man wrote one letter about his kids having fever and the doctor put so many leeches on their foreheads it looked like they were wearing false hair (complete with little cartoon).

Hecubasdaughter · 05/02/2012 09:49

I've just remembered something. Our local council actually turned down planning permission for building on a field on the edge of our village. The reason being it is the site of the plague pit.

Thumbwitch · 05/02/2012 09:44

Oh the tragedy of the cholera doesn't bear thinking about really - putting those pumps so close to cesspits, and the things that went into them! Had to research that for something I was writing, most unpleasant and yet fascinating as well. Dr. John Snow did really well but wasn't given any credence for ages. :(

Thumbwitch · 05/02/2012 09:42

OOOo! did they do live cupping on stage, TSP?? Shock but [fascinating]

I have a bit of a thing for toxicology of foods - it was something I really enjoyed teaching. Another thing I used to add into the mix was what happened when you gave spiders certain chemicals - these are the results - caffeine was the most disturbing! Grin

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 05/02/2012 09:39

Re Cholera - this map is fascinating

It's how they finally worked out it was waterborne. The little dots show cases of cholera in London in a 10 day period in 1854, and the squares show water-pumps. The cholera is clustered around a particular water pump on Broad St - Dr John Snow worked it out.

Brilliantly creepy picture of the figure of cholera pumping out water for children!

OP posts:
Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 05/02/2012 09:33

Oooo we're still going!

The Branagh Henry was almost my favourite childhood film Hmm

Scout - that's great, perfect indoor viewing for a snowy day; what's it called?

At about 3am I remembered watching The Painted Veil, the dramatisation of the Somerset Maugham book, which deals with cholera. It really showed what cholera does (and how that could maybe also have been the 'scowring' we were talking about yesterday??) - the patients laid down on beds with sort of woven rush matting and underneath were these bowls/buckets, and stuff just RAN out of them - so thin and pale they said it was like rice water Sad No wonder you just died of dehydration in 2 or 3 days.

I've also been thinking about The Madness of George III - honestly, I know I have mentioned it before but please, I beg y'all, go and see it if you can. The main performance is astounding (I write theatre reviews so obviously see a lot of plays, and this is the best performance I have seen in 10 years) - but the way health (mental and physical) are dealt with is extraordinary. Of course we now know that George 3 probably had porphyria (because his urine was blue), and what was extraordinary was that the doctors weren't interested when his footmen pointed this out. It was totally dismissed. And the treatments they tried was essentially torture - the cupping was actually really fucking hard to watch Sad Sad

Echt on the 'died of teeth' thing - I think it might be even more poignant than that - someone upthread said that that is more likely to be babies having trouble being weaned off the breast and not getting the nutrition they need Sad Sad

OP posts:
MoreBeta · 05/02/2012 08:30

joan/jericho - didnt see the Branagh Henry V but saw a programme on the Battle of Towton. Fascinating stuff. Yes the forensic analysis of slashing downward blows from horsemen was an absolute joy.

Went to Warwick Castle a few years ago and watched the archery demonstration. The man who did it had been an ex soldier in real life as well and was brilliant on the mechanics of death by arrow. Really nice bloke too. Amazing how many arrows he could fire in a minute although he admitted he was'nt even close the real skill and physical power of a Medieval archer who all had deformed spines from a lifetime of pulling Yew bows (there is the Yew tree again).

Loving the 'death by plant' theme. Grin

StealthPolarBear · 05/02/2012 08:06

cholera would have been a big killer too, was that in the list

JulesJules · 05/02/2012 08:04

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

ScoutJemAndBoo · 05/02/2012 08:04

SPB I thought maybe colic, but who knows?

StealthPolarBear · 05/02/2012 07:58

would "winde" be appendicitis maybe?

ScoutJemAndBoo · 05/02/2012 07:47

Cuurently on bbc iplayer is a dramatisation os Samuel Pepys Diary, which I would not normally seek out, but in light of this thread was hugely enjoyable.

Hecubasdaughter · 05/02/2012 04:23

One of my ggggrandmother's death certificate reads 'in a ditch by the side of the road whilst in a state of weakness' We have come up with lots of theories as to what that actually means.

Another ancestor's says 'between two railway carriages at x station'

Obviously both a long time after 1665. Found quite a few interesting deaths while doing my family tree.

garlicfrother · 05/02/2012 02:02

Yeah, Mary. My last post!

garlicfrother · 05/02/2012 02:01

Not at all historical, but I have extensively researched this tomato thing (foodie, y'see!) You would have to eat a mountain of the green stuff to get poisoned. Even if you did, the remedy is widely known - I seem to recall it involved cynaide or arsenic? I was more interested in edibility!

They've been eating Fried Green Tomatoes in the southern States for a century and even Europeans make green tomato preserves. Tomatine is the "tomato" flavour - ripening adds sweetness, but destroys the tomatine.

Now, in summer when I have the plants, I put lots of stems in my tomato dishes for flavour, then take them out when cooking's finished. It works :)

Green potatoes are generally safe but, as the toxicity varies from one potato to the next, it's best to avoid green ones. A bit of a green tinge wouldn't hurt but you need to be far more cautious with spuds than tomatoes.

I do find it odd that I'm prissy about green potatoes, while cheerfully smoking shedloads of tobacco (also a nightshade variant) Blush

MaryMotherOfCheeses · 05/02/2012 01:51

Oh gawd you know when you see a thread which is sure to be really interesting but you know it's going to take half an hour to read.... Grin

Just making my place for tomorrrow's "Threads I'm on" !

Smile

(are there any boring bits?????? Wink)

garlicfrother · 05/02/2012 01:48

I'm shocked I'd never heard of the Harrowing of the North, Tunip! If I had heard, it must have been in passing. Most peculiar.

What a pity the Wikipedia entry seems to have been written by a teenager with a slim grasp of the events s/he references.

mathanxiety · 05/02/2012 01:24

I know that many country people in Ireland as late as the 60s had their teeth pulled for their wedding photos. And there are people even still in the hip hop world who have their original teeth replaced with gold teeth in order to flash wealth. Samhain/mí na Samhna survives as Irish for November. Bealtaine is May (ancient pagan 'Beltane' midsummer), Lúnasa is August (Lugh being the ancient Celtic god). The yew was associated with the day before the winter solstice.

I would have died from meningitis at 11 (even in 1975 it was a close run thing) if a dental abscess hadn't killed me off at 10.