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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 · 04/02/2012 12:44

I think average lifespan in urban areas actually fell once the Industrial Revolution started. I read that in Merthyr Tydfil it was actually 17 at one point Shock. They kept falling into vats of molten iron and stuff.

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:43

Argh Thumb I missed that but was very keen to see it.

Here's a pic of inside the Hunterian for anyone debating whether to go...

When we went, two utterly adorable girls of about 5 and 6 were talking to a skellington, and dressing in special jackets with patchwork reproductions of the vital organs stitched on the front, while their Dad was saying things like "And this is the LIVER and this is the LUNGS" Grin

DH resolved then and there that our children, should they ever make an appearance, will be introduced to skellingtons ASAP.

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JerichoStarQuilt · 04/02/2012 12:43

But average lifespan is a bit unhelpful, because once you got past the dangerous bit of childhood, if you were a man, your life expectancy was longer than 30. You still do get quite a lot of 50 or 60 year olds on the books (disclaimer - well you do in 1500 or so, and I suspect it's not that dissimilar in 1665? Could be very wrong though.)

ArielNonBio · 04/02/2012 12:42

X posts with Sarah.

ArielNonBio · 04/02/2012 12:42

There is still plague in some parts of the world. All you Londoners, watch out for plague pits.

SarahStratton · 04/02/2012 12:42

Plague is endemic in ground squirrels in part of the USA. Just saying, like. Grin

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:41

Jericho I am really enjoying it I must say Blush

I get very very mizz if I'm not occupied in STUFF... Why should children have all the fun, eh?!

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Thumbwitch · 04/02/2012 12:40

Wouldn't strangury be urinary retention? Which is bloody dangerous? Rather than just painful peeing

Did any of you sickos morbid types (like me) go to the Bodyworks exhibition? That was truly fascinating! WARNING - DO NOT CLICK ON LINK UNLESS YOU ARE A MORBID TYPE!!

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:40

Ariel I know about bubonic and pneumonic but not the other!

I remember when I was little my Dad telling me that someone, somewhere, has bubonic plague in a little test tube in a fridge somewhere. True, I'm sure, but it didn't 'arf put the wind up me as a 7 year old Hmm

OP posts:
dreamingbohemian · 04/02/2012 12:39

I don't think it's that surprising there weren't many deaths attributed to cancer back then -- what was the average lifespan, 30 years or something? Most people died of something else long before the age where cancer usually occurs.

Also it was pre-cigarettes, which takes away the biggest tranche of cancer deaths today.

And lots of cancers couldn't possibly be diagnosed back then, brain cancer was probably attributed to fits for ex.

I do think it's quite impressive they knew about cancer at all though!

JerichoStarQuilt · 04/02/2012 12:38

scarlett - isn't it?! Obviously I was bursting to share that bit of info with anyone! Blush Grin

I am deeply envious of your project.

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:38

Oh Lor' SS you should deffo visit the Hunterian - they have the skeleton of the Giant O'Brian (also subject of a superb novel by Hilary Mantel, may she live forever!). And the skull of Charles Babbage. And an awful lot of pickled foetuses. Foeti. Whatever.

God, that 'teeth' thing is awfully, awfully sad.

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BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability · 04/02/2012 12:38

On the one link I was reading, thrush is categorised with cancer and canker?? Confused

ArielNonBio · 04/02/2012 12:37

Don't tell me, he then died of hideous diarrhoea after ingesting raw sewage, dead chickens, dogs, run off from tanneries etc etc etc.

Did you know there were three types of plague? Bubonic which was the one which hit London in 1665 and the whole of Europe in 1347 (I think?). Also there were some interesting variations: sceptacaemic, which infected your blood and which could cause a healthy looking person to drop down dead in the street, and pneumonic, which infected the lungs. Symptoms including foul breath, and the spluttering up of pinkish coloured blood. Ew.

SarahStratton · 04/02/2012 12:36

My favourite place as a child was a museum that had a mummy with his bones sticking out. That fascinated me, and I used to have to be bodily removed from his presence. Blush

Thumbwitch · 04/02/2012 12:36

The same link suggests that teeth (large number) was due to teething infants swallowing or inhaling teething objects, that may have been poisonous or obstructive. :(

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:36

Jericho how fascinating about the sibilant 's'!

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JerichoStarQuilt · 04/02/2012 12:36

Kurri I remember that programme too - so sad.

Btw, 'convulsion' could refer to eclampsia. You go into fits.

In fact when my gran was dying one of the older nurses told us that a lot of terminal patients would be having seizures or trembling if they weren't treated - I forget why though.

SarahStratton · 04/02/2012 12:35

Yup, me too. I definitely wouldn't be here. Confused

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:35

BTW, anyone that enjoys this thread absolutely MUST visit the Hunterian Museum, which is the Museum of the Royal COllege of Surgeons...amazing. AMAZING. My most favourite AWFUL thing was the pickled face of a small child that had died of smallpox. It was actually rather beautiful in a way, and so sad.

Oh God I sound like a maniac Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:34

Sarah that would make sense - because of course a timpani is an enormous drum, so i guess a swollen stomach would look like that...

Kurri that is awful.

I begin to thank God and all the saints and angels that I was born in 1979!!

OP posts:
Thumbwitch · 04/02/2012 12:32

From that link Choux posted:
"Surfeit (choking on vomit from overindulging in food or drink, like the drummers from Spinal Tap)"
Grin at the e.g. given!

I knew some of these but not all. Interesting stuff; and no, the cause in many cases wouldn't be elucidated until the 18th or 19th Century (or even later).

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 12:32

Beyond that is fascinating - and very sad.

Ariel I remember someone saying to me once that it's cancer that gets most of us, in the end. I guess if nothing else kills you - it's like our cells have a kind of time-bomb built in (btw I am really sorry if any of this seems callous and flippant to anyone).

I will never ever forget reading about someone being cured of the PLague in Defoe's Journal of a PLague Year. If the buboes (boils/infected glands) burst, you often survived, but they were so hard and deep they could not be lanced. One man went insane with pain and fever, and in his raving leaped out of his window into the freezing winter Thames. The action of swimming and the shock of the cold apparently burst his buboes, restored him to his reason, and he was cured Shock

Disclaimer: if this is bollocks I don't want to be told Grin

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KateUnrulyBush · 04/02/2012 12:32

Oh Beyond :(

That explanation for death from teeth would never have occured to me.

ArielNonBio · 04/02/2012 12:30

Oh God KurriKurri, how hideous :(