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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:
BleatingRose · 04/02/2012 11:44

Fascinating stuff!

TunipTheVegemal · 04/02/2012 11:44

what about traffic accidents in the 17th c? I know there were lots in Victorian times, horses and pedestrians in confined spaces are a dangerous combination.

dreamingbohemian · 04/02/2012 11:43

Oooooh interesting! (fellow history geek Smile)

I think 1665 was a bad plague year, it came and went. I think it helped fuel hysteria in the leadup to 1666 when apparently loads of people thought the world would end.

Didn't they also hang a lot of people back then?

debka · 04/02/2012 11:43

lethargy that's what I want to die of. (hear that, DDs??)

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 11:43

:)

It does make sense that lights would be a lung condition...

OP posts:
Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 11:42

2tired Top marks for you - 49 dead of Surfeit!

OP posts:
choux · 04/02/2012 11:42

Rising of the Lights: croup - any obstructive condition of the larynx or trachea (windpipe), characterised by a hoarse, barking cough and difficult breathing, occurring chiefly in infants and children.

debka · 04/02/2012 11:41

You'd be proper unlucky to escape the plague then die of farting wouldn't you! Great thread, TSP

Original poster
TheScarlettPimpernel · 04/02/2012 11:41

Oh yes, that'd get you dead of malnutrition I guess..

There's more!!

One killed by a fall from the Belfry at Allhallows the Great (what was he doing up there??)
1 died simply Suddenly
Five died of Thrush - I am thinking this must have been like when people suffering from Aids get it in the mouth and can't eat???
2 died of Stone (kidney stones?)
1 died of Lethargy

And my favourite in a macabre sort of way: Burnt in his Bed by a Candle at St Giles Cripplegate

OP posts:
ScoutJemAndBoo · 04/02/2012 11:41

I am sure I read once that lights was the common name for a chronic lung condition. Would wind be severe colic?

I wonder what the comparative list in London 2012 is.

Probably lots of RTAs, a few murders, and at least half of the above, but drink and drugs would be the modern plague.

TunipTheVegemal · 04/02/2012 11:40

oh btw I read recently that in the few days after a bereavement your risk of a heart attack goes up massively.
Frighted must be heart attacks too.

2tired2bewitty · 04/02/2012 11:40

Brilliant!

I see it doesn't list surfit, I thought that was a popular way to die back then? [Grin]

SherbetDibDab · 04/02/2012 11:40

You can't fart yourself to death, else my dh would be dead by now.

TunipTheVegemal · 04/02/2012 11:39

oh I just looked up impostume - it's an abscess.

TunipTheVegemal · 04/02/2012 11:38

I guess worms would have included tapeworm, not just threadworm.

that is fascinating.

Did no-one get killed in a fight, drowned in the Thames, etc?