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?

Consumption aged 25. In reality I had a bad post viral situation then (like long Covid before it was called something) and couldn't work for months. I imagined myself being taken off too a seaside sanitarium to recuperate .

What are the vapours? What would be the modern equivalent, I wonder?

Oh yes I forgot my own birth. I would have died before i was born and taken my mother with me. Good job it was the 80s!

Whooping cough age 3 months

Either a recurrent childhood illness or, if that didn't get me, I'd have died in childbirth.

I was born to an unmarried teenage mother so my chances would have been slim (as it was the mother and baby home I was born in had a way higher infant mortality rate than the general population so I dodged that even in these times). If I survived that and living in dire poverty, I would have been grand until childbirth and then I would have died in a great deal of pain. Mind you it wouldn't have been dh's child (as he would likely be dead of appendicitis at age 12) so maybe another baby would have had a smaller head.

Asthma

If I'd survived my birth (forceps) then I'd've died from a quinsy at 21 as it would have burst and choked me probably!

Should that not have ended me then childbirth would have as DD had cord around his neck.

Measles

Pre eclampsia is the first life threatening thing that occurred to me. However, I wonder if various bacterial infections in my early years would actually have seen me off sooner without antibiotics.

Probably would have been killed off by polio, Diptheria, tetanus, cholera, measles, mumps, rubella, TB (cinsumption) any of those now preventable childhood illness because of vaccinations.

I’d still be going strong but my DD would have died of scarlet fever.

Realistically, I wouldn't have been born - I'm a product of fertility treatments.

Otherwise, I guess I could take my pick of the childhood diseases I was vaccinated against, or maybe smallpox or cholera or typhoid or any other fever or dysenteric disease.

If not those, childbirth would have done for me the first time - had to have forceps and then haemorrhaged.

I'm so glad I'm not a Victorian.

Nothing.

I'd be a long lived Victorian.

East births.

Never had a broken bone.

Never even had stitches.

I'm autistic though so they might have locked me up!!

Epilepsy in a loony bin most likely

A fractured skull at 5years old as I fell from a seesaw onto concrete (in the days before spongy safety surfaces). Had to have surgery to put my skull back together, definitely wouldn't have survived in Victorian times

Apart from being to gobby for my own good, probably measles, rubella or appendicitis.

After I had DD I had to be whisked down to Theatre for placenta removal. I was a bit upset about leaving my baby and the midwife cheerily said “look on the bright side- 100 years ago you would have just died of infection instead”
Not quite Victorian but same principle

Effects of Coeliac disease. As it was I was dangerously ill as a baby when I was put on solids and only diagnosed because my aunt had been diagnosed a while previously.

I definitely would have got consumption due to boredom and been put in a mental asylum ! My mum would have been there first so any husband who I would have annoyed due to my excessive use of laudanum and gin would have had a good excuse.
Child birth I might have got away with ... but with no use of bowels or bladder control.
I would definitely have shagged a stable hand as well ( in my mind I am kind of upper land owning folk, not titled, but I get to eat meat etc ) .
Victorian me might of had some lolz actually- would anyone have noticed I smelled of pee?

Childbirth, small pelvis, 3 days in labour, emergency C section, baby in distress.
Thank God I was born in the 1950’s.

I would have been stillborn but otherwise I would have died in childbirth. And if I hadn’t, meningitis.

I wouldn't have been born alive.

If I had been born childhood asthma would have been very dangerous, tge birth of my first child may have killed me and my baby. If I had survived those my appendix would have been what finished me off.

I had an awful kidney infection that took weeks of antibiotics to clear, I suspect in Victorian England I’d have gone septic and died.
if that didn’t kill me, then having my son 100% would’ve (he also would’ve died) I had a big haemorrhage and he required resuscitation.

Me neither. I was 8 weeks early in 1986 and it was touch and go, I wasn't really expected to survive. Thanks to intervention and a lot of medical care I have made it to almost 37 and have 2 kids of my own, one of which most definitely wouldn't be here without the intervention we had.

Fingers crossed for the next generation being born trouble free!