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

That's why I still have bags under my eyes. Who knew? :(

Sarah, I was thinking exactly the same thing but in regards to my spots. I gave up on my under eye shadows long ago.

This is even more bizarre.'Unmarried mothers who pulled cabbages blindfold on All Hallows Eve would be able to discern the looks of their future husband'.

'Midwives unlocked doors and loosened knots all around the house to ensure an easy birth'.

Anyone want the recipe for 'A Gammon of Badger roasted'?

Tunip - I bet the master of the workhouse took advantage of many a young woman.

Looks like even in those days the rich got away with their names being kept secret.

[Hmm] at A Person of Quality.

I mean at A Person of Quality.

Blimey

Out of interest what was the population of London in 1665?

I'm sure I remember reading somewhere that congenital syphilis caused malformation of the teeth and therefore teething difficulties. Could that account for some of the teething deaths?

I've just found a reference to death by headmouldshot. Sounds vile. And also Grocer's itch

Population about 400,000 hecuba. That's a good point about syphilis.

I remember being in tears of laughter at this:

And I shall read the whole thread in future

But good to see other David B fans about :)

Why are you at A Person Of Quality? I am a Person Of Quality

David's routine is nowhere near as amusing as ths thread.

I think MrsPotter was slightly too rabid to be described as a fan.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there are modern chemotherapy drugs made from yew trees. Taxanes, used for breast and ovarian cancer.

I fear I am not a person of Quality [commoner]

Fascinating thread - I should have got on with so much stuff the last hour or so..

My only historical contribution was that years ago I was doing some research in our villages Book of the Dead. The vicar in the mid 19th century had dutifully written in all the parishes deaths, however after a time his hand writing got scratchier and scratchier, finally almost illegible. Then there was a discreet gap in the book and a new hand writes in the death of the vicar. And life goes on....

Going back to the Bill of Mortality, it's interesting to see that there were 17 stillbirths (sadly, a number that hasn't reduced greatly today) but 42 deaths in 'childbed'. Does this suggest that childbirth was more dangerous for the mother than the baby at that time, or were the deaths of the babies either not recorded, or recorded under a different category?

Mavis - I had a similar experience re handwriting.
My research subject had lovely clear handwriting most of the time. (And how I loved him for it . He drew funny cartoons in the margins, too!). But when he was very ill in the lead-up to his death, his writing got all scrawly and spidery. It was so, so sad! And the letters he wrote to his close friends knowing they would probably be the last....

Some baby deaths were recorded as Chrisoms. - death before baptism.

Going back to the churchyard/yew tree thing, I thought it was practicality, as there was so much nitrate in the soil from the bodies that not much else would grow there happily? (Might not be nitrate, but something like that.)

Tunip - it is sad isn't it? Like someone's mortalily played out through their writing . My Vicar obviously didn't keep up with his job towards the end. After his death is recorded there were a number of other deaths recorded post-dated!

I have had course of yew based chemotherapy. It certainly felt toxic.

There is a good museum at St James hospital in leeds. It has some really eyewatering old surgical instruments along with gruesome diagrams.

"My grandmother was very ill after the birth of her first child with 'childbed fever' - in hospital for months - this was in 1930, - also known as puerperal fever, I think its a kind of infection. I think that was probably a common cause of death for women pre anti biotics."

It was indeed very common, sadly. Family rumour has it that my G G Grandmother died in childbirth in the late 1800s. Her death certificate states that she died of an infection, one which was often found in the womb of women who died following childbirth. I'll never know for sure as until around, IIRC, 1922, stillbirths weren't recorded. I've learned that stillborn babies would generally have been buried unrecorded with the mother if she also died or along with a stranger if the mother survived in circumstances where, as with my family, the bereaved didn't have enough money for a seperate funeral.

It's all very fascinating but terribly sad too.

I had a GP once that collected old surgical instruments and had them on display in his consulting room. It was kind of off-putting.