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

I was about to comment on your monster essay too! It's so crashingly obvious when you think about it isn't it? How many diseases have prospered because of customs like that, and things like wakes?

I hadn't thought of wakes, but yes, I bet that didn't help.

I find it just so sad, because it's such a natural human reaction to want to keep the dead close, but it used to be a total taboo before Christianity. And actually the Romans have taboos against failing to bury a dead body, which I have seen explained as a good practice for containing disease. Medieval people really go for death masks and chopping up dead people to bury a heart here and a head here ... actually it makes me wonder how much the later prohibitions on dissection were quite helpful to individuals (if not to the progress of medicine).

That thing about burying within the church and so on is really interesting. I used to live in a village right next to the church. The old village, before the plague, had been situated a few hundred yards away from where it is now.

After the plague the village was rebuilt away from the old plague village but the plague victims were buried within the church that did not move and everyone still visited it.

Even more oddly, one grave of a child was put right at the back of my house, literally just outside our living room but outside the church yard. I always wondered why that was. Perhaps a child born out of wedlock?

And how sensible it was of the Hindus and Muslims to either bury or cremate their dead within 6 hours or so.

I can't believe this conversation has got even more morbid

burial vs cremation must come into this as well - cremation much more hygienic but was taboo for a long time in Christianity (and still is in some countries - a Greek student told me it was illegal in Greece until fairly recently).

The infant mortality thing is correct. I live near St James, Cooling which is the one Pip meets Magwitch in Great Expectations 17 (?) little baby graves from 2 generations of same family. I've been in other graveyards with eg Robert aged 2 died 1860, Robert aged 1 died 1862, Robert aged 3 died 1866 and so on, which must have been unimaginable for the poor parents.

You'd think they would have tried a different name after a while wouldn't you?

the ones that get me are the ones where a large family of children have survived infancy and are then carried off by disease within a space of a few months.

Cremation is still taboo for some strict Christians. My cousin was a nun and she wasn't allowed to opt for cremation (C of E).

MoreBeta I would love to know about that child's grave - how poignant.

Julia - it's awful isn't it?

Beta - child unbaptised perhaps?

IIRC there was a chap who lived up the road from where I grew up who was one of the first to insist on cremation for his son, who he had eccentrically named Jesus Christ. He was a thorough maverick. Anyone know his name - he lived in Llantrisant in the nineteenth century? He is credited with helping change attitudes towards cremation

I haven't read all the replies, but isnt the OP quoting from a David Baddiel stand up sketch from the 80's ?

'Even to her own children, the Church has in special circumstances refused burial in the churchyard, not only to unbaptized children, suicides and lunatics (the latter being possibly possessed by a devil), but in particular to those, who, for one reason or another had been excommunicated; a whole parish was liable to excommunication for various periods for disregarding ecclesiastical law, during which time burials in consecrated ground were forbidden. In such circumstances it often happened that the body would be secretly buried in the night within the coveted spot, which if discovered, brought further penalties on the offender.'

from this randomly googled but probably not totally made up text

I was reading the other day about Victorian non-conformist groups, and those who believed in adult baptism were subject to all sorts of laws about where children could be buried and who could perform what service. The Suffolk and Norfolk churches site (google if if you don't know it, it's good for browsing - the site maker has visited very church in the area and described them, including lots of local story-type stuff) has a story about a child being buried and the C of E vicar locking the burial party out of his graveyard.

You'd have to have some terribly strong religious convictions wouldn't you? To go with adult baptism knowing if your child died they couldn't be buried properly. Apparently there was a right stink about it as C of E English people abroad were entitled to be buried in Catholic or Orthodox cemetaries, but the C of E didn't allow non-baptised children even if their parents were committed to adult baptism.

inbetweener, yeah we've done that thanks. It was established that she had never seen in. Doesn't detract from a very interesting discussion. I'd advise you to read it.

MOreBeta - isn't it unchristened children who get buried outside of graveyards? could be wrong though.

Ariel Names - sick, but funny Cremation man -saw a tv prog about him - interesting. apparently we're gonna be freeze dried and granulated in future
I'm getting donated

God, even if Scarlett was quoting from DB sketch, who actually cares?

This is a great thread and still needs to be moved out of chat, by the way. :)

My MIL lost her firstborn - still birth - her next boy was given the exact same name. Must have given him a bit of a shiver when he saw the grave, no?

Here we are: I present Dr Price of Llantrisant.

Thumbwitch yes, I think so. I've seen horrible things of still born babies buried on waste ground, never having proper graves etc. Quite recent, the mothers arestill alive

Niice. Freeze dried and granulated sounds quite practical TBH.

The names thing confuses me hugely - there's a family I was looking at where both brothers and the father were John. I always wonder if little brother was named when big brother was very sick and not thought likely to survive, or if they just didn't think of names the way we do?

My mother wants to donate her body to Gunther von Hagens to be plastinated, after we went to Bodyworlds and she absolutely loved it. There would be a certain logic - she used to teach biology and thus could continue to do so after her death. Me and my dad said 'Over my dead body...' though.

Jericho - or it could just be an enormous ego on the part of the father, like George Foreman who named ALL his sons George (5 of them, I believe!)

There's another great children's book about the plague: Children of Winter.

My friend was complaining about mortality stats being skewed by high infant mortality. There are ways of presenting the stats which takes thus into account and gives more accurate figures. She's doing her history PhD on cholera. It's fascinating, she's so lucky.