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 sister said it was one of the rare occasions where she was glad that their English was so poor, that she wouldn't be able to give a proper explanation.

She dressed the wound & did an urgent referral to oncology - but she said it had to be terminal, as most of the breast was taken up with the tumour, with obvious nodules in the arm pit.

Talking of famous deaths Oliver Cromwell I think died of 'stone' a kidney/urinary infection that turned into septicaemia.

Thanks to I am unable to mentioned Oliver Cromwell without launching into the song (my A-level history teacher used it as a teaching method when we did the English Civil War(s)).

OOOOOOO-Liver Cromwell,
Lord Protector of England
Born in 1599
Died in Sixteeeen Fiffffty Three (September)

Sixxxteeen Fiffty Eiiiight

Not fifty three.

Was listening to it at the time and was slightly distracted.

Just caught up this morning and marking my place...

It was William the first that 'exploded' but the reason was because of all the chaos after his death (which happened in what we now call France, he was Duke of Normandy after all) which meant that it took ages and ages to bury him by which time the body was very bloated and 'dripped black fluids' (I think it's orderic vitalis who describes this in his historia ecclesiastica) and then they tried to stuff it into a stone sarcophagus which was too small... so although obviously it was taken to mean all sorts by the chronicles, it really was just the natural reaction of body left out too long!

R2, I gained one of the highest marks in our year for a history A level module because of that song.
we were studying Charles I, and were told that Cromwell rarely comes up, and it had been on the previous years paper, so don't waste time studying it.

Yeah, it was the compulsory question. People were crying in the exam. That song helped me remember enough dates to wing the question (it was a source based one) and come out with a very respectable 70/100.

Oh, something else from a childhood visit to Lincoln Cathedral.

When Eleanor of Castile died nearby in the thirteenth century she was embalmed and her inside bits that they removed were buried in the cathedral, while the rest of her was taken to London.

A grave full of internal organs and nothing else.

Theres a big statue on top which disappointed me as a very literal child, I was expecting a image of the actual contents of the tomb.

I saw a programme on discovery channel about Queen Anne that said it was thought she had antiphospholopid (sticky blood) which meant her blood clotted in pregnancy causing the miscarriages. A simple course of aspirin would be prescribed today... Or heparin injections depending on your clotting levels. I got very excited about this as I have antiphospholopid & thanks to a great team was finally able to have 2 beautiful dds after miscarriages.

excellent thread.

'The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there'

do you think that it was because of the unimaginable trauma (ie to lose 17 children before adulthood) and commonplace extreme pain?
do yo think their mindsets were so different to ours, or not? it probably explains faith. You would have to believe there was more than this and a chance to see your loved ones again.

sorry bad typing bfing

Fascinating thread.

Have never heard of Anne Boleyn publicly cursing H8 before her execution. And surely the bit where she claimed her daughter would be a great queen just drips with hindsight?

In fact, on the scaffold she said, 'I pray God save the king and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never; and to me was he ever a good, a gentle and sovereign lord.'

Anne's speech on the scaffold

Not uncommon for condemned people to praise the monarch who was sending them to their deaths, I believe. The idea was that this might make them less likely to go after your family too.

Not all of Queen Anne's pregnancies resulted in miscarriage:

"Queen Anne gave birth to 6 living children.
Of those 6, the 3 born in the 1690s, Mary, George and Charles, all died within 24 hours of birth.
Mary and Anne Sophia, born in 1685 and 1686, were healthy girls. They both died of smallpox in February 1687, within a few hours of each other.
Prince William, Duke of Gloucester ... was the only one of Queen Anne?s children to survive infancy ...
At the age of 11, William caught a fever and possibly pneumonia as a result, and died on 30th July 1700."

Source here

it probably explains faith. You would have to believe there was more than this

That's a paradox, isn't it. Yes, faith must have been comforting in times when life was cheap, brutal and short. But the church - and the kings who led it - effectively suppressed medical research, branded it all witchcraft and destroyed existing repositories of medical knowledge. So the church provided comfort for the pain it created.

I always felt sorry for Henry VII's mother, Margaret Beaufort. She had him at 12 (or 13 perhaps) and was so injured having him she couldn't have any more. I mean, imagine being sent off to be married and having children at that age .

I wonder why Catherine of Aragon and Arthur never had a proper wedding night. Surely he knew what he was supposed to do?!

wow, how awful ScatterChasse.
A twelve year old is a very long way from being full-grown, no wonder she was damaged by it.

Do they know why viruses disappear so suddenly after appearing like that? That's what they think the sweating sickness was, wasn't it?

She was a very interesting woman, Margaret Beaufort. Even before Philippa Gregory got hold of her.

Yes, she was still about years later wasn't she? I think she organised/supervised quite a lot of the entertainment and banquets when Henry married Catherine of Aragon and was regent at that time wasn't she?

Happens a lot in Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan, Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa

wrt the church and science -- interesting paper, long and starts slowly but maybe worth a read. Progress has been bumpy but to say the Church has operated through history like the proverbial wet blanket is really not a hypothesis that stands up to examination.

I think we have seen even in this thread how hard it is for even those without some sort of basic religious belief at stake to accept new ideas and understand, for instance, the necessity of washing hands between patients (the experience of Semmelweis). It's not as a result of any fundamental characteristic of the church as an institution that certain lines of scientific inquiry met resistance. There are dumb people out there in all walks of life, and even the world of medical science has gone up more than a few blind alleys (lobotomies, eugenics, leeches).

Leeches are a good idea, you do still find them used very occasionally to remove necrotic tissue.

Eugenics, medically speaking, is sensible, no different to selective breeding. Obviously where it falls apart is on moral grounds. But in theory it wasn't that bad an idea.

Isn't it maggots that are being used to remove necrotic tissue, and the leeches are to stop blood clotting?

And maggots too. They are still used to remove infected tissue.

just googled leeches and maggots, it is all very interesting! Honey is making a comeback too apparently.

Oh sorry, yes. I was muddled! They are still used though, because they produce an anticoagulant.

And by Demi Moore to help her look young and beautiful.
Talking of which, when we were discussing cupping earlier, I didn't get a chance to mention there was a craze for that among Hollywood slebs - there were photos of Gwyneth Paltrow with photos of marks where she'd been cupped.