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?

I would definitely have died of a dvt in pregnancy when I was 28. My baby would have probably died too.

I would have bled to death from a subsequent miscarriage (as it was touch and go enough in 2010).

Actually I might have died of malaria when I was 22 ((although I'd have been unlikely to have been in Malawi to catch it) although they did have quinine then.

I might have died of measles as a child.

We were very poor when I was a child, so were lucky to benefit from council housing, free school meals and benefits. In Victorian times my family would not have had this, and I would also be very likely to have been living with all kinds of illnesses (rickets and the rest) and would have been lucky to make it through to adulthood.

Another childbirth one here

I had retained products couldn't be removed ended up with sepsis and emergency surgery

Probably the bout of glandular fever that put me in hospital when I was 15.
DP, either at birth or early childhood from epilepsy.

Oh actually I had a tooth abscess when I was 18.

That said, a lot of my ancestors made it to decent ages (well into their 70s) so maybe things like that didn't necessarily kill you, even before antibiotics? To be honest I don't know how anyone survived without them!

Measles and pneumonia... So probably put down as Pox

If I wasn't carted of to the Asylum for talking to myself or thinking different, then I would have died in childbirth.

I would probably have wasted away at home from inflammatory bowel disease - commonly misdiagnosed as dystentery then.

I would have died having my 3rd child- had placenta previa, without c/section it would have been a pretty bloody & gruesome way to go. Must have been horrific attending some childbirth deliveries in Victorian times.

I was born with the cord around my neck so I probably wouldn’t have survived being born.

I then had repeat UTIs as a child.

Had I made it past that, I broke my arm badly aged 10 and needed surgery to straighten it. My arm would be useless and disfigured so I would have been living the life of a beggar on the streets or in the workhouse and waiting to die of starvation or some minor illness.

Asthma as a young child.

In hospital I needed the nebuliser to live.

Both childbirths. First PPH , second premature

I would have survived childbirth assuming they were both as easy as my two were, but likely wouldn't have made it that far as a childhood plagued with tonsilitis would likely have seen me off. Either that or the series of dental abcess infections in my early thirties which made me want to cut my own head off. Had I survived all of these, i would likely be languishing somewhere now, suffering from the sin of gluttony.

Neglect at the Bethlehem hospital

I think it very much depended on social class, surviving the first year and then the first five years of life. Many Victorians ( which is obviously completely different from the beginning to the end of the period) lived into their 80s and even 90s. Obesity was rare, activity levels higher, less pollution ( away from cities) . Even death in childbirth was not that common about 5 per 1000 births mid century, obviously awful , and obviously multiple births would increase that risk. I imagine someone middle class like a country parson had a pretty high chance of a long life., Whilst a working class girl working in a mill a lot less. I think we are gradually going back to a massive variation on life expectancy due to social class

Bethlem. Grrr autocorrect

Cystitis. Or been put in an asylum for not behaving correctly as a youngady should!

Probably pneumonia as a baby.
If not, one of the repeated bouts of tonsillitis I had as a child.

I’d have been stillborn too.

13 months when I had pneumonia and stopped breathing.
My first childbirth when I had placenta praevia and 3 major haemorrhages (sadly my son did pass away).

I also have hypothyroidism so I probably would have ended up in a lunatic asylum.

Appendicitis aged 11

Whooping cough maybe, aged 8.

Mastoiditis at age 7 and if I survived that then childbirth with my first child due to massive blood loss.

Childbirth probably

Teeth in my late 30's.
Both my DC birth were natural & fine.

Not sure about things like measles as I am vaccinated, so didn't really have them.
Same for any disabilities related to illness or diet.

Otherwise I have been in good health apart from an accident that would have probably landed me eventually in the Asylum!

I like to think, that I would have had a better chance than most, thanks to many of my ancestors being in the "medical profession"!

Any number of broken bones and accidents. As a teenager in modern society I didn't expect to live to 21, I'm still shocked to now be in my mid-30s. I would not have fared well in Victorian England.