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?

TB.

Quinsy or possibly consumption.
🤣

That’s awful! 💐

Definitely the accident I had 10 years ago involving a horse and a very large open wound all down my leg.

One of my ancesters fell of a chair in a workhouse and died apparently, so maybe something like that

Pneumonia
Childbirth
Obstructed bilduct from gallstones

But actually could be any random thing we get antibiotics for now - ear infection, infected splinter etc

Cheery thread!

Me: probably repeated ear infections in childhood - no antibiotics. If I'd survived those, childbirth. My first pregnancy was fine, but my baby was big and breech, so I ended up with an emergency CS.

Husband: childhood asthma. Otherwise, heart problems which were fixed with a stent a few years ago.

Daughter: birth (see above), pneumonia as a toddler, burst appendix a few years later.

Son: not sure he would have made it through the pregnancy. I had oligohydramnios and he was induced 3 weeks early. The placenta was not looking good by then. No way that would have been picked up without modern obstetric techniques.

Assuming an infected toe nail that responded to antibiotics wouldn't have turned to gangrene I would probably still be alive. I did have a broken wrist as a child but that was reset without surgery ( modern pain relief) which I would have also probably survived although the reset would have been very unpleasant!
Of course I might have died of measles, typhoid, cholera, child bed fever etc but they are all unknowns.
My daughter had an open fracture that could have killed her I assume?

A collapsed lung, age 2.

I don't think I would have died, but I might have only one eye and totally short sighted in the other. I'd also be pretty poor health due to anaemia. Oh, and deaf in one ear

I would probably have died of septicaemia before I was 3. I had kidney reflux and therefore had multiple UTIs and frequent antibiotics.

Probably mumps which I had as a child. But if not that something I have been vaccinated against - measles? if that hadn't got me then an eating disorder (but maybe I would have avoided that) a badly broken arm, flu, an ectopic pregnancy or childbirth with a placental abruption... I could take my pick

Also one fell into a fire and one drowned in a canal

Whooping cough - had a very bad case aged 2. If I'd have survived I'd have lived as a 'cripple' due to a now-treatable hip condition I was born with. That would have been the case until only a decade or so before I was born, as the treatment I received was quite new.

Childbirth. Rare condition called velamentous cord insertion would have killed me and DC1

Scrub that - I wouldn’t have made it at all because my mum would have died of TB.

Necrotising fascitis aged 24.

I had meningitis aged 2…so yeah probably fucked

cancer

Meningitis at 11.

Quinsy at 18 would probably have done for me. But I probably wouldn't have had it, as I'm pretty sure I picked up the underlying tonsillitis from my then boyfriend!

Extremely premature birth would have ended me within hours.

Yep quinsy, tb, measles....I was forever on antibiotics as a child feo something or another in my respiratory system

Severe pre eclampsia

I was hit by a car at age 4, so I guess the equivalent would be being run over by a horse and cart.