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Original poster

If you were a Victorian, what would you have died of?

636 replies

AhoyThereShipmates · 17/03/2023 15:45

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?

OP posts:
MrsCarson · 17/03/2023 16:48

If I survived the Mumps as a child I'd probably have died from Childbirth 2 breech babies here and a lot of blood loss on number 2

NoNotHimTheOtherOne · 17/03/2023 16:48

...or cholera or typhoid, of course, if we had had Victorian-quality water.

Or diphtheria.

RainyReadingDay · 17/03/2023 16:49

Pretty sure I wouldn't have existed in first place. I was a C-Section birth. But if I had survived, then maybe measles at age 7, or childbirth as adult.

mellicauli · 17/03/2023 16:49

I probably would've caught something at the asylum where they would have sent my mother for her PND..

Catinabeanbag · 17/03/2023 16:49

I'd most likely have been left with a limp from irritable hip age 4 (spent 10 days in hospital on traction which I very much doubt would have happened back then), so probably wouldn't have been able to work much.
More likely I'd have seen myself off experimenting / inventing things or doing the 'what happens if I try / do this' and it not going very well.....

Purplecatshopaholic · 17/03/2023 16:50

Had pneumonia badly at 12, so probably that!

Catinabeanbag · 17/03/2023 16:50

Though actually... I'd probably have been carted off to the asylum age around 14 or so (and definitely age 33) and left there indefinitely.

Clovacloud · 17/03/2023 16:50

Chickenpox when I was 5. Or the Quinsey at 24. But 100% childbirth, I barely survived it in 2003, wouldn’t have stood a chance in Victorian times.

QuietlyConfident · 17/03/2023 16:51

FancyFanny · 17/03/2023 16:45

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.

Yes if you'd had six children before the age of thirty five then your chances of getting breast cancer would have been substantially lower. But your chances of dying in childbirth rather higher. Swings, roundabouts.

MrsMoastyToasty · 17/03/2023 16:51

I would have died from my stays being too tight from trying to create an 18 in waist more like 28in. Who am I kidding?.
That and a surfeit of bon bons ...

WonderingWanda · 17/03/2023 16:51

Childbirth if something like cholera or tetanus didn't catch me first.

Pythonesque · 17/03/2023 16:52

Another who probably wouldn't have survived being born or at least would have been severely disabled. After that it would have been respiratory infections in early childhood.

Had I survived all that, then yes my children wouldn't have survived childbirth and likely enough I wouldn't either.

Equally, going backwards my mother wouldn't have survived her several unsuccessful pregnancies prior to me being born.

Itmustbewinetimenow · 17/03/2023 16:52

I wouldn’t have died of anything but me children were very premature so they wouldn’t have survived.

endofthelinefinally · 17/03/2023 16:53

I wouldn't have lived as I was born prematurely.

Christmasbird · 17/03/2023 16:53

If not childbirth then lupus

Dragonsandcats · 17/03/2023 16:53

tonsilitis as a child.

LadyGardenersQuestionTime · 17/03/2023 16:53

Would have done ok till about the menopause but have died of sepsis from a uti then.

MyGrandmaLizzie · 17/03/2023 16:53

Childbirth, I had retained placenta with both births.

MadameOvary81 · 17/03/2023 16:54

Whooping cough.

nationallampoons · 17/03/2023 16:54

Probably in a debtors jail because I'm getting a dro 😂

MargaretThursday · 17/03/2023 16:54

Either at birth (I was breech, turned, and turned back again, luckily the midwife spotted and turned me again) or aged 3yo with pneumonia.

SparkyBlue · 17/03/2023 16:55

I had pre eclampsia on DC1 and ended up in high dependency after my c section. One of the midwives asked afterwards had I seen Downton Abbey as she said I'd have had the same fate as Sybil. She said this to me a week after the whole drama happened so she wasn't trying to frighten me or anything at all like that but she was trying to help me understand why I was still in hospital as I felt absolutely fine but there was still lots of underlying issues with my blood pressure

Marblepie · 17/03/2023 16:55

Potentially from a complex arm fracture that needed 3 operations to repair when I was 8. Or in an asylum as I was sectioned in my teens. If not then childbirth at 24 would have finished me off as it was an emergency C-section.

I think we would have escaped the workhouse despite my mum being a single parent as this actually runs in my family and my great-great grandmother and great-grandmother both had children out of wedlock in their late teens and were really well supported by their families.

Chocolatesandroses · 17/03/2023 16:55

Measles when I was 5

QuietlyConfident · 17/03/2023 16:55

I was an EMCS birth following a failed induction, but I've been pretty healthy and lucky since then so assuming I survived that, and didn't fall victim to a random cholera outbreak, or a nasty case of bronchitis, I'd fancy my chances up to my current age of 55.

However, with untreated hypothyroidism and high blood pressure (inherited rather than lifestyle related) I'm not sure how far I'd have got into my sixties.