If you were a Victorian, what would you have died of?

[AhoyThereShipmates]

Reading a children’s book to my daughter that is partly set in a Victorian workhouse and it got me thinking.

I had a broken collarbone aged 9, and a pulmonary embolism, and then of course childbirth. If I was Victorian any of these might have killed me, but my money is on childbirth. DH reckons he would have been carted off to an asylum with unusual thoughts and would have just wasted away. Go on, indulge me.

If you were a Victorian, what would you have died of?

Small pox
Diphtheria
Polio
Whooping Cough
Tetanus
TB
Scarlet Fever
Typhus
Typhoid
Cholera

There is a whole host of diseases that vaccinations, good sewage systems and hygiene have stopped. I didn’t include measles, mumps or chickenpox as I had those and survived.

Same with a retained placenta. One (plausible) theory is that the likelihood is that Jane Seymour (of third wife of Henry VIII fame, not the actress!) died because her birth was overseen by male doctors who didn't check properly for a retained placenta, so she developed an infection and died. These things were all a lot riskier before modern medicine - I'm not trying to downplay the advances we've made - but they weren't the sure death that lots of people seem to assume. You see the same on any thread about homebirth; you always get people explaining how they definitely, absolutely would have died at home and a couple of midwives trying to patiently explain that things like PPH are an emergency but not a death sentence.

I thought lots of children under 5 died but if you got past 5 you had a good chance of a long life

I wouldn’t have made it to 2; if I’d survived being born (four day assisted labour) the meningitis I had as a toddler would have finished me off.

I'd have probably been killed working down a coal mine. If not, I'd have died during childbirth, from appendicitis or just gradually faded away from coeliac disease....

I wonder what kind of pain relief or anaesthetic would have been routinely available then? Ether? Chloroform? I don’t know much about this topic but I’d love to learn more. I’m dimly recalling my history GCSE and learning about the history of medicine and public health, but that is some time ago!

Victorians are my favourite period of history for sure.

A urine infection

Surviving amputation must have been relatively common as it is such a frequent cultural reference, ie pirates, sailors , beggars? Of course it must have been a truly appalling and dangerous experience before modern medicine.

I’m another childbirth one. First child I had premature rupture of membranes and then horrible induction, instrumental etc before a PPH. Fairly sure I’d have been a gonner re infection from the prom without intervention. No idea if my daughter would have made it. she’s quite resilient so suspect she probably would have made it through infancy. Not so sure about my other one who tends to end up in hospital as she doesn’t do well with infections. Think her nasty kidney infection would have been a problem without modern medicine.

On a slave ship! Thanks to my race.

Pleurisy. I know of people born before antibiotics who survived several run ins with life threatening situations.

😩

Probably one of the things I’ve needed antibiotics for, if not childbirth.

I agree that we overestimate the risks of pre-modern childbirth. If an obstetrician estimates that a situation has a ten percent chance of maternal death then nowadays that's seen as a dangerous emergency which would whisk you into an crash CS without a second thought, and it's natural to think "I'd have been dead without that!"

But of course ninety percent of Victorian women would have survived that situation. I'd have survived without my EMCS, though my DD might not have.

I would have said childbirth, but I had a nasty bout of cellulitis caused by an insect bite when I was 22. So probably that.

My own birth
My daughter's birth
My disability
Workhouse due to disability
Numerous chest infections
Jail 😂couldn't get away with half the things you do now

Childbirth. I had an emergency c section After being induced and in labour for 2 days.
or pneumonia - ended up on IV antibiotics and in hospital for a week.

If I survived the childhood pneumonia I would have died giving birth to dd1. Breech baby and emergency section.

From google it seems like about 50% would survive which isn't awful odds. But they look really messy

I would've died as an infant, I was v premature

95% of women survived childbirth and 90% of children survived till 1st birth, so no most people on this thread would not have died some of course but not most.
why mumps rubella or chickenpox would kill anyone as these are diseases children still get and by and large get better by themselves we may give paracetamol for pain but then they had cream and salves for itching, they also had some painkillers, getting an infection even without antibiotics is not a death sentence most people will recover, Just think how many people got and survived covid for which there was largely no treatment, lots of the elderly and ill still recovered; the body is actually pretty good at dealing with stuff otherwise the human race would have died out long ago

Childbirth, my third child was wedged and not coming out, he was eventually dragged out with forceps rather blue, then I had a retained placenta. I'm pretty sure I'd have bled to death or died from infection afterwards. I'd have had a good innings at 37 though.

If I'd managed to be born at all, and presuming I didn't catch any of the illnesses I've been vaccinated against, I would have died of sepsis post giving birth at 18.

In fact, I was dangerously close to that in the twenty first century, never mind the nineteenth.

I'd be really fascinated to know if people would also assume that they'd have died of all these things in the many parts of the world today with limited access to even basic healthcare, or whether it's the idea of 'the past' that makes people see it as so unlikely that they'd survive childbirth or a tooth infection.

I wouldn't have been in labour; my DS wouldn't have existed without IVF.

Two large pulmonary emboli would absolutely have seen me off, though. And before that, in a era pre-antibiotics, a serious infection was enough to kill. Then there are all the dangerous childhood diseases which have now been seen off by various vaccination programmes. Smallpox was a huge threat. The Great Pox another! As were thypoid, typhus, cholera TB ...

Take your pick!