Ways of Dying in 1665

[TheScarlettPimpernel]

So I'm just copying out a weekly Bill of Mortality from London, 1665 (don't ask!)

Look at some of the ways of dying - anyone care to hazard a guess at what some of them might be?!

Plague - 7165 (IN A WEEK!!!)
Childbed - 42 - just goes to show, it's all very well bemoaning medicalised childbirth/interventions/CSs but look at the alternative
Grief - 3 (Not bloody surprising - wonder what the actual medical cause was?)
Griping in the Guts - 51!
Rising of the Lights - 11 (WTF was that then? In offal, are the lights the lungs, right?)
Kingsevil - 2 (Don't ask me how I know this, but I believe this to be scrofula)
Wormes - 15 (OH EM GEE, you could die of worms )
Impostume - 11 (what?!)
Frighted - 3 (three people scared to death in a week )
Winde - 3 (Oh yeah. FARTED TO DEATH)

I realise I am a bit morbid

My only interesting disease is hyperemesis gravidarum. There is a view that it was that that killed Charlotte Bronte. I once read a learned paper that opined it couldn't possibly have been HG because she coughed up blood and mere morning sickness doesn't make you do that. Oh how I laughed.

Ah, Saggarmakersbottomknocker. Welcome to the thread. Thanks to your splendid name I know what a saggar maker's bottom knocker is.

I think these disease names should be brought back into use and instead of posting on Mumsnet about our child's asthma we should say 'my dc has rising of the lights' and discuss who would be the best physician to get to come and bleed him.

Hahahaha

So it couldn't be HG because she coughed/threw up blood. I guess that was surmised by a man someone who'd never had HG.

Great idea btw.

Fanjo in the 17th century my old college used to own a cabinet of curiosities which included 'Bishop King's gallstones, mounted in silver.' I've never thought of the danger of the operation as a factor in why these things were kept as curiosities but it makes sense - if you survived the operation then they sort of evoke good luck (or divinely ordained survival), don't they?

Saggar - my local workhouse had a scandal where one of the inmates had a baby fathered by the workhouse master. He managed to hush it up long enough to get another job at a workhouse the other side of the country and had vamoosed by the time it came out.

I had Scarletina in the 70's.I remember being very hot but not much else.

My dad used to use Mercury on the farm,to treat seed corn with.He reckons he used to mix it up in a huge tub and plunge his arms in up to the elbows.Apparently it dyes your skin red.He is nearly 74 now,which is a miracle really.

DH says his dad used to bring Mercury home from work for him and his sisters to play with.

Yew is absolutely deadlyeven in tiny amounts,it kills so fast that animals poisoned with it often still have it in their mouths when they drop down dead.I think it kills within minutes and there is no antidote.You can try a charcoal drench if you catch the animal really,really quickly and it has only ingested a small amount,but generally you'll be too late.

Which has just given a great hypothesis on why sleeping under them was seen as such a bad idea (as they apparently sucked your soul away), you fell asleep, mouth open, a yew needle would drop in, causing you to gasp and choke and presumably die very quickly but with no discernable cause to whoever found you. Possibly.

fascinating terrifying thread

Mirage/Frida - amazing about the yews!! AMAZING!

So often these old wives' tales have some pretty sensible medical advice behind them. I remember on MN a while back, there was a thread on 'stupid advice my MIL/DGM gave me when pregnant.' A couple of people were laughing at their MILs had told them not to peg out washing when pregnant, and how stupid that was. Then someone pointed out that if you have erratic blood pressure the very worst thing you could do would be to stand with your arms up for extended periods of time....all perfectly sensible (as demonstrated in a recent episode of Call The Midwife, of course )

I'm old enough to remember our physics teacher demonstrating the properties of mercury by rolling little balls of it around on her desk.

I had Scarlett Fever when I was about 6/7, so early seventies. If I remember rightly the skin on my hands peeled off. (though I have also had Chicken Pox, and Measles so could of been one of them)

Am loving this thread - and have not read through to the end - yet . I've jumped ahead to ask y'all - where on earth are you finding the Faber Book of Reportage ? I can only find 2nd hand copies, and I hate buying 2nd hand over the internet after I managed to introduce a load to silverfish to my beloved books and had to borrow a spare freezer to get rid...

Gosh - had no idea the Old Bailey records were online!

Have just been randomly looking at records. Found this one, from a list of final words by criminals about to be hanged at Tyburn on 18 December 1691. Absolutely tragic:

IV. Mary Mott, Condemned for killing her Male Bastard Child, she said, that he who begat it, promised her Marriage: When she was quick with Child, she sent him notice of it, but he ran away, and took no Care of her, so distrusting Gods Providence how she should maintain the Child, she put it up in a Basket, and exposed it in a Gutter, to starving. She said that she had an hard cruel heart, for which she now Relents, as also, for Sabbath breaking, for Drunkenness, and the frequent neglect of Prayer and all other Religious Dutys.

And moments before she was actually hanged:

Mary Mott, was seemingly very Penitent, Crying out for Pardoning Mercy from God; for so bloody a Fact, as the Murther of the Innocent Child; but being overwhelmed with Grief, she could not express her sorrow for her sins, and particularly for that for which she Dyed.

Makes you very grateful for all the support single, unmarried mothers of "bastard children" can access these days.

It's £25 on Amazon, but I bought a second hand copy for £3.15.

Mine was second hand on Amazon - about £6 I think, but it's a 'good clean copy' as they say, and I don't think it's got any silverfish...

Mine too, you could always stick it in a plastic bag and freeze it anyway.

More from the Old Bailey records. Mr Brittain has lost his cock. Judith Ruth was cross-examined about Mr Brittain's cock.

J. Ruth. It was a big cock, but I can't say that I know it again.
Q. Look at this cock. ( She looks at it.)
J. Ruth. It was like this cock.
Q. to prosecutor. What time did you lose your cock?
Prosecutor. I lost it on the 20th of October, and found it again on the 27th of December.

Where was it found? Swallow Street, of course.

For anyone who doubts the authenticity of this exchange, the original is here.

Now that is indeed, a find

Rofl wigeon!

Tis a great site for livers of old names too, you get some crackers.

Like

Griffiths
jeremiah
tess

Mitcheller
Ebenezer

Lovers not livers lol.

However, some of the saddest sections are in infantacide, totally tragic tales.

I love all the old names for chemicals and elements.

Dephlogisticated air sounds way better than oxygen.

This website has a list.

Oh dear,I fear I shall get nothing done tonight.I have stacks of books to read,but will be spending my time on this thread instead.It is definitely one for Classics.

I have fetched out my 'Country Housewife' book,which informs me that 'a Sussex cure for Ague,to be written on a triangular piece of paper and wornb around the neck until the paper dropped off;Ague,ague I thee defy,
Three days shiver
Three days shake
Make me well for Jesus' sake.

Also,never apply ointment with the forefinger-called 'the poison finger'.The ring finger is the healing finger.

Mirage, that's brilliant!