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 had polio as a baby which has left me with a weak right hand. I might have survived that.
I had my appendix removed age 4, that would have killed me.

I really don’t think the Victorians died quite as easily as some of these posts would leave us to believe.

I had tonsillitis aged 5 so in theory this. But, if I had been born to similar status parents my chances of not getting it in the first place might have been higher because in theory I maybe wouldn't have gone to school but had a governess.

Midwives have been aware of breech births and how to deal with them for centuries. Keeping away from male doctors and hospitals was probably important!

MS I think. I certainly would be a classic 'invalid' by now.

Childbirth

I'm surprised to see three people saying chicken pox on a two hundred post thread. Were you all hospitalised with it? That's got to be a higher than normal rate surely.

Childbirth, ie being born, as I was an emergency cesarean. Probably taking my mum with me.

Childbirth. DD was transverse and my placenta was low. I had a c-section.

I often wonder what they and those before them did about dental problems?

Oh how interesting. That makes complete sense. Fascinating, thank you!

I think if birth wasn’t my cause of death it would have been my pulmonary embolism in that pregnancy.

Yes, I'm surprised by how many people seem to think it was some sort of rare miracle to survive childbirth!

Own birth (I was born by induction more than a month after my original due date and was a very big baby. If no induction I dread to think. ) Or recurrent childhood tonsillitis with no antibiotics. Or getting a head injury being run over by a van (I suppose it would have been a horse and carriage in those days) age 13. Or in childbirth- first child waters broke, labour progressed then stopped for hours, they had to induce. In the olden days we would have both got an infection and died I guess. Or huge infected blister from ice skating a few years ago - leg went red and rock hard. Had to have heavy duty antibiotics.

No I think you’re quite right!

Gall bladder infection😧

Possible sepsis from chronic ear infections and glue ear I had growing up.
There were a few nasty ones I needed antibiotics for.

I think it's so hard to make any comparison because of how different our lifestyles are compared to then. One of the biggest killers of children back then was fire - catching garments on candles and fires and not being able to put them out. It's an awful thought and something we never worry about now as we tend not to routinely have naked flames in our house, and our textiles are less flammable. On the other hand, Victorians didn't tend to worry about their kids getting hit by a motorbike coming out of nowhere at 50mph so...

I've had few significant medical incidents in my life, but it's impossible to know which of them might have been a big deal back then. I used to get a lot of ear infections, just a routine childhood illness that antibiotics sorted, but I suppose a bout had the potential to kill me if it had progressed. Equally, tetanus jabs mean I've never picked up lockjaw from a sewing needle, and there's no arsenic in my wallpaper or clothing to poison me horribly. Who knows what would have done it for me, frankly.

Quite. It’s the tonsillitis that really gets me! And chicken pox as PP mentioned.

I had whooping cough as a 3 year old and I've had two children. So probably one of those.

Otherwise I'd have just taken to my bed at some point never to be seen again.

Appendicitis at age 13. But maybe if I lived back then and ate a different diet I might not have got appendicitis in the first place.

Other than the appendicitis I am quite healthy and robust. I had uncomplicated childbirths etc.

But if I hadn't received all my childhood vaccinations then any one of those diseases could have finished me off in early childhood.

Yes if every child who got pneumonia, measles , scarlet fever etc died the human race would have died out way before victorian times!.

Whooping cough more than likely. But I might have just escaped, but childbirth for sure.

I had my lower leg amputated- so back then I would probably have died from the initial accident or the surgery or the inevitable infections afterwards.

Simple prematurity & pneumonia at 33 weeks.

Although there weren’t the medications & medical interventions we have today, they weren’t dropping like flies in the streets. There may have been much to say about dirt & grot helping to strengthen the immune systems of children; my great granny (who worked in service) often said that the children of her employer were ‘pale & sickly’.

That could be due to not being filthy like the street urchins, or maybe it was all the lead paint & arsenic in their green wallpapers. Who knows?

at present about 95% of posters think they would not have made adulthood @InTheFutilityRoomEatingBiscuits is one of very few who think they would still be alive,
I think I would have been too, had whooping cough as a child but got over it without medication and I wasn't that ill. I need glasses ( which would have depended on income whether it was corrected but glasses were available) and my hearing is poor but I managed fine until late 40's but hearing aids were unavailable so life would be more difficult. DD was a CS due to getting in distress after induction so she may or may not have survived but I probably would have survived being objective, however without a forced induction she may have been born Ok we simply don't know.
my Dad died at 98 without modern medicine he might have died at 93 from pneumonia, he would not have got knee replacements in his late 80's so would have been immobile sooner my DM has had nothing that she would have died of a century ago.

I probably would have died from something really common like a UTI. I got one really young and needed antibiotics. The antibiotics turned out to nearly kill me as I was allergic. Nearly dying from antibiotics is definitely a modern first world problem though.

I guess if I somehow survived the UTI I possibly would have died from preeclamsia or a uterine infection during childbirth. My water broke at seven months and was hospitalized for what seemed like forever to prevent uterine infection.

Then had to be induced earlier than the hospital would have liked because of a sudden increase in blood pressure. Nearly killed me and the baby.