Ways of Dying in 1665

Lots of tonsillitis as a child, and pre-eclampsia. I wouldn't have made old bones.

Ironically enough this thread is keeping me from finishing up the history chapter of my own PhD.

Stop being so interesting ladies!

thumb - i have read somewhere that syphillis causes infertility/brain disorders/infant mortality many generations down from the initial sufferer.

I had a teacher for Chemistry who used to carry little balls of mercury around in her lab coat pocket and play with them. She died of cancer later, I don't know if it was related but always assumed so.

I think I have never actually had an illness that would have killed me in pre-modern times, but quite likely infected cuts would have done it. You could die from a tiny cut just as easily as anything else, because people didn't know what to do.

ariel that is awful about the expedition - but in a way good to know what happened.

Erm ok, Thumbwitch. Sorry.

Me too. I wouldn't have been born probably as my Mum had lots of miscarriages and I was stitched in. Other than that the asthma would have got me, or appendicitis.

Why is there no mention of appendicitis on the list? Would that be included in tympany?

(Funny sketch, mind )

FFS! did they not know yew was poisonous then? I didn't realise that, I thought that was ancient knowledge! Sad though.

Ariel - you are lovely and your posts are very interesting but please don't say "heavy metals" cos this is a non-scientific term that has no real chemical meaning (I know, I wrote a whole article on it because I had to look it up once). Even though lead does qualify on all counts, many of the other so-called "heavy metals" don't, such as arsenic (semi-metal) and aluminium (not heavy). I spent much time berating my students for using the term and wish it could be stricken from everyone's vocabulary.

Yes, the lead in the cans was from the lead solder, iirc.

It's in Cambridge but I didn't write about the syphilis/mercury thing in it because how he died wasn't really relevant to the thesis - it was about his work rather than a biography.
I kept getting sidetracked by intimate details of his private life. His wife kept getting preggers and he wrote that she wanted to lock him out of the bedroom but he didn't think there was any point because 'the brats will come however you manage it.'
Since he ought to have understood the principles of human reproduction I can only assume he meant they had sex in other parts of the house.
(You always know you are in for something juicy when a letter begins, 'Darling boy, burn this letter as soon as you have read it....' )

I second frida's recommendation of the Baroque Cycle

Another vote for the Hunterian museum. I went with a school group and we got to go around the back to the bit where the general public aren't generally allowed in, lots more bits in jars. Also went to the Old Operating Theatre on the same trip, that was really interesting as they re-enacted how they used to amputate limbs - speed being the key attribute needed by the surgeon.

Anyone been to Eyam? Very interesting from a plaguey point of view.

just bought Reportage can't wait till it gets here

How many times would have been dead if you had lived before modern times?
Me, several times from chest infections, infected mosquito bites ,appendicitis, and pre eclampsia

Is what you are talking about Mrs Potter?

Because I still don't get why you are being snarky about this thread?

am loving this thread! not only am i learning summat, im also seeing how to spell! - for good historical fiction, i can recommend CJ Sansom, really good gruesome murders with fantastic historical research - set during Henry VIII - terrific!

Turnip - interesting! Given that chronic syphilis is supposed to have some form of mental deterioration as one of its symptoms, I wonder if that is more from the bug or from the treatment? [ponders]
Mind you, congenital syphilis also produces mental abnormalities, so possibly the actual bug. Unless they were being treated with mercury while pregnant as well.
[ponders more]

Oh! Oh! Talking of heavy metal poisoning, is anyone into Polar Disasters? Apparently, many of the doomed Franklin expedition of the 1850s were killed because of lead poisoning from the food tins. They found them buried in the ice and did PMs on them

x-post, Thumb :)

I MUST close this browser ... !

... in a minute ....

I've just acquired the Faber book of Reportage too, after a friend recommended it on her blog. It's currently my bedside book.

John Aubrey, who was also from the 17th century reports a couple of unusual cures, with varying results:

"Sir Jonas Moore - sciatica; he cured it by boyling his buttock"

"Mrs. Cl-, of S-, in the county of S---, had a beloved daughter,
who had been a long time ill, and received no benefit from her
physicians. She dreamed that a friend of hers deceased, told her, that
if she gave her daughter a drench of yew pounded, that she would
recover; she gave her the drench, and it killed her. Whereupon she
grew almost distracted: her chamber maid to complement her, and
mitigate her grief, said surely that could not kill her, she would
adventure to take the same herself; she did so, and died also."