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?

Bacterial meningitis, aged 3. Antibiotics saved me.

I actually might have survived my own traumatic birth where the doctors decided to save my mother because they were fairly sure I was dead already because that was caused by the twilight sleep anesthesia they gave to all women having vaginal births at the time. Without those stupid drugs, my mother probably wouldn’t have almost died and I neither would I. Plus I wouldn’t have an occasionally painful scar running down my back from where they sliced me quite deeply.

I probably would have died when I had cancer in my 20s. Caused by an autoimmune condition so fairly inevitable.

Tonsillitis aged 5.

Childhood asthma, I nearly did a few times as it was!

In a poor single parent family on benefits I’d probably have been in the workhouse or squalid home conditions and caught some godawful disease, starved or died in factory machinery or something.

Dental infection aged 28 (v nearly did die as they didn't believe me until I went septic and called an ambulance)

DD3 would have died at 9 days old of bacterial conjunctivitis

Another one for childbirth - DC1 was a ventouse delivery.

Although I can imagine that I would probably have had an accident in childhood due to uncorrected short sight (ridiculously strong prescription) in combination with child labour in unsafe workplaces.

Touchwood haven't contracted any diseases in childhood so maybe nothing. My epilepsy may have killed me by being wildly uncontrolled or me being burned at the stake for being possessed by a demon or accused if being a witch 😁

Very interesting, thank you!

I have loads of severe allergies, from pollen to horses to foods to medicines. A simple horse ride would of probably killed me off.

I wouldn't have survived being born. I was born at 30 weeks (a twin).

Syphilis. Cos of all the shagging.

Appendicitis at 12 would have seen me off.

After instrumental deliveries for both dc my dd wouldn't have made it to 2 weeks old (unknown cause, suspected meningitis) and ds post-surgery infection at 3.

Theres a medical museum in my city that has a whole section on victorian healthcare, things really were grim then.

This 🤣🤣

Meningitis when I was 8 would have seen me right off! If I miraculously survived, placenta previa with my first would have definitely done it.

I’d still be alive and so would my DC, thankfully. I’m yet to have life saving treatment and have had entirely natural births with them, no difference made by modern medicine. I might have had to have more of them though and I’m sure the fact that they’ve been vaccinated and fed properly would help….

I might have survived my birth but my poor father would have been handed his new born daughter and told "I'm sorry, your wife didn't make it" as my mother had a massive PP haemorrhage. Thankfully I was born recently enough that she DID manage to live until she was 90

I was born with a disability I wouldn't have lasted long it comes with a list of medical conditions 1 of them would have finished me off!

Hole in the heart. Would probably have been recorded as "failure to thrive." Not just in Victorian times though. I am 55 and had pioneering surgery as a young child.
I'd have probably gone in childbirth though with no.3. Pre-eclampsia right at the end of pregnancy followed by shoulder dysocia and uncontrolled pph.
She was definitely our last!

Peritonitis, aged 6.

Although equally likely smallpox at an earlier age if everyone hadn't been vaccinated.

My father's serious injury when I was 12 would have put us all in the work house and he would have died in agony while we struggled on for a while longer, maybe resorted to desperate measures for income and likely a stick end one way or another.
Actually thinking about it, my mum may have died in child birth with my older sibling (cesarian for breech presentation, so might have survived possibly), I wouldn't have even been conceived if the breech birth wasn't successful.

If my mother and I had miraculously survived childbirth I think I would have died of breast cancer. Although saying that, i may not have had developed breast cancer due to lifestyle differences.

Actually, as vaccines weren't a thing then, I suspect many of us having survived being born might have been finished off by malnutrition or one of the many childhood diseases that we now vax against!

I’ve had a very healthy life and two easy births but I would probably be popping my clogs soon if my high blood pressure was not treated - stroke.

they did know how to remove placentas manually - in the world of obstetrics they had to know how to do quite a lot. Eg medical professionals today tend not to have done too many deliveries that presented as risky from the start, because they rightly have the option to go straight to c-section and vastly reduce that risk.
Victorian midwives would have by necessity a lot more hands-on experience in delivering breech babies, multiples etc vaginally. Not saying that it was better back then, obviously they didn't all survive, but if I were to have another breech presenting baby I'd probably have more faith in a 19th century practitioner to deliver it vaginally than a modern one, simply bc one has had far more training and experience in it than the other. I might still get a terrible birth injury or die of an infection or whatever, but a tricky birth might not necessarily mean game over.