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?

"Victorian" covers such a long time period. Early Victorians would get a shot of rum, opium if they were lucky. By 1900 you'd have a reasonably well organised chloroform or ether option.

Probably one of the childhood infections/diseases I had or one of the ones I would have had without vaccination.

Probably bronchitis aged 8

Chest infections , had loads as a kid so that would been my demise .

A lot of comments mentioning that we would have likely survived what we think we would have died from. I think it's important that the way the question is framed though is hypothetically what would you have died of? So we are simply making assumptions based on our experiences though.

So it's quite possible I might have survived my UTI and even the preeclamsia as terrible and traumatizing as it was. But there really isn't any way to know. We are simply assuming we died of these things.

Also have to consider all the factors that we were vaccinated for though. 😂🤷🏻‍♀️ No idea what I would have caught and endured because I was lucky enough to be vaccinated!

Spleen infarct. Pulmonary embolism. Stroke. Blood clots in most major organs. Childbirth x2. Brain bleed. Sheehans syndrome. Hypopiturism and Addisons disease!

Asthma, except perhaps I'd not have had it back then? Rates have gone up. If not that then pneumonia leading to sepsis though in some ways that was a complication of asthma.

If I had survived whooping cough I had at age 5 I reckon the recurrent tonsilitis which developed into quinsy at age 16 would have finished me off. Had two more bouts of quisy, the third one I had to be hospitalised for and had to have i.v antibiotics and i.v hydration. I lost muscle as a result of this bout and had tonsils out which changed my life

And yet, people survived. My great grandfather was one of 12, who all survived to adulthood.

DM and I would have died during my birth.
If I’d managed to survive that then poverty and starvation.

Childhood scarlet fever

Well yes obviously people survived. But that's all really anecdotal. Did your great grandfather surviving somehow negate the high infant mortality rate?

My own birth probably, but if not then DD’s birth for sure!

If measles hadn't done me in at 4 years old, childbirth definitely would have - in 2004, I was lucky to survive so Victorian me wouldn't have stood a chance.

I think it's important that the way the question is framed though is hypothetically what would you have died of? So we are simply making assumptions based on our experiences though

Just highlighting the above!

I can’t think of any particularly terrible illnesses that I had but I was the youngest of six in a family where neither parent was very fit by the time I came along and they were both pensioners but the time I was a teen. So in the absence of the welfare state etc, I’d have probably either gone into service/become a prostitution to earn my own living and/or died of cholera in a workhouse/brothel/gutter. Yay.

Probably from a kidney/ureter abnormality I was born with. It would have got me eventually probably aged around 15. Apart from that, like lots of other women, post birth haemorrhage from 2nd child.

we are so lucky with our modern healthcare, despite its problems.

Workhouse related maybe as I was a teen pregnancy result.

• excuse the typos, I am an undeserving poor Victorian and consequently illiterate.

I suspect a lot of the childbirth ones ( failed induction, EMC) etc would have been more like exhausted mother suffers for many days in labour, possibly resulting in a dead baby which may have been removed with the assistance of some truly terrifying looking obstetric tools. The mother would like others said in most cases would have survived. A lot of modern obstetric intervention ( ie lying on your back with an epidural) can stop the natural progression of labour. The knowledge of traditional midwives in all pre industrial societies was very impressive. Mortality was higher in hospitals due to infection risk.

This is a really good post.

Doubt I would have been born as DM wouldn't have survived various childhood illnesses or childbirth either. If I had been born, I would have gone in childbirth too.

Surgeons in the army got very good at quick amputations, several shots of whisky or brandy and several mates to hold you down and still and it was done in 2-3 minutes and sealed with hot irons ( this would have greatly reduced infection risk) Apparently the first documented woman to survive a caesarean was in 1791 in lancashire, by 1900 90% of women survived caesareans

I had pneumonia as a young baby so wouldn't have made it to my first birthday. Neither would DB as he needed surgery on a stomach problem when he was very young.

I would think either one of the childhood diseases I was vaccinated against or childbirth. My labour was brutal.

If I’d survived my childhood pre-vaccinations then I’d have died from a post partum haemorrhage