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?

My mother would've died when she was 6 months pregnant with me.

Hyperemesis, or if survived that childbirth. And if I survived those then Myasthenia Gravis.

My mother and I would have both died I imagine, as she had pre eclampsia. If she had been given a c-section, as she was when I was born, then I might have died of Scarlet fever as a toddler, if I had survived that, I would probably have died in childbirth myself, or of a kidney infection in my forties.

Measles or giving birth with loosing a lot of blood, had o have a blood transfusion.

I fell over alot as a kid wearing glasses.Replacement glasses are /probably were expensive. So as lady above said run over by horse and carriage.

Mistreatment in an asylum probably.
I've rebelled quite a lot in my life and would no doubt had been considered insane and too outspoken (by men)

Nothing so far touch wood.

Doing my family history and most of my family lived oddly long lives for their era. Going back as far as the 1700s, a lot of my ancestors lived into their 90s! A few died several years younger but very, very few before late 70s. I’m not particularly adventurous or excitable so no accidents, and never take antibiotics so I guess my immune system is doing okay. I think Victorian me would be fine so far 😄

Apparently I had double pneumonia when I was 2. I guess that would have seen me off.

Probably sepsis and people did not know what it was. My mum's brother died in the 1970's aged 10. The way she describes it is weird. I now think it was sepsis, they just didn't know what it was then or her family and community didn't. So, I'd imagine it was a big killer in the decades and centuries before then.

Gosh, but actually, the poster above has reminded me that I’d definitely be committed to an asylum for a number of personality traits and MH issues! Maybe Victorian me isn’t so smug after all.

We ve an old cemetery nr us, its shocking that number of children who died before they reached 5 years old in the 19th C, it was around 1 in 3 and it wasn't until 1950 that it fell to 1 in 20.

We might all be unhappy with the NHS atm but from what my Gran would tell me, it was far far worse pre NHS (she was born in 1893)

Next time anyone is in a primary school, just imagine that around 150 years ago, 1/3rd of the children there would have died before their 5th birthday.

Probably stuck up chimney with Dick Van Dyck prodding me with his Chim Chim Cher-ee stick thingymebob up me nether-end.

Oh me Gawd,
wot-a-way-to-go,
wot-a-way-to-go
(as Tommy Steele might say)

Sorry, you're asking about people's personal issues not what Victorian people died of. In that case it would have been female infanticide - as a second born girl in my culture that would've been my fate.

In my head -a fashion faux pas.

in reality. Ectopic pregnancy leading to burst tube.

Childbirth - I almost did in 1977. Sepsis in the early 2000s.

A fall from a horse aged 15, broken collarbone and fractured skull.

Being born. I was 3 months premature so wouldn't have survived apart from the first hour after birth probably. So I guess, I might as well say I wouldn't even be alive in those times to consider myself actually a Victorian.

stomach ulcer age 14

Well I had an EMCS with DS, then full blown anaphylaxis a couple of years later, and I’m current recuperating from appendicitis/peritonitis/sepsis combined so there’s quite the list to choose from. Have regularly counted my blessing for the NHS and modern medicine over the last few years. Although the asylum may well have got me first…

Asthma aged 4, or postpartum haemorrhage aged 42.

Pneumonia as a toddler. If I survived that then pre eclampsia with dd. Dd was born very prematurely so she wouldn't have survived either. Makes you think how lucky we are to have had our ancestors survive long enough for us to be born!

I'm in the same boat as you.

I was 3 months premature and weighed only 2lbs. It would have definitely not been a good time for both of us to have been born early. Thank goodness for King's College hospital in London and the last bed that I got in the NICU... I think I need to try and be more grateful every day.

Would never have arrived. DM had TB as a teen and only survived because of the advent of effective medication to treat it.

Flammable crinoline skirt.
She died doing what she loved.

My own birth. And if not, whooping cough aged one.