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

diabetes would have been a cause of death with no insulin available. don't know what theywould call it

Given hygiene must have been poor then I can imagine surfeit was really food poisoning rather than actual overeating

Some famous ones, here's Crippen?

www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?id=t19101011-74&div=t19101011-74&terms=Crippen#highlight

Yeah, the food poisoning stuff make sense.

Any ideas on Strangury?

Incidentally I have here 64 dead of Convulsion. That could be anything that causes fits, right - so possibly diabetics? (I am not 100% clear on the symptoms). Epilepsy, also...

this says strangury is painful urination.

Strangury must be strangling, surely? Might include choking ... haven't googled.

Oh, wrong end

fascinating, are you a social historian or something? the wonders of MN to be able to share all this!

Did you get to the bottom of "impostume" or did I miss that? will google anyway..

Yikes - according to the page posted above:

Cut of the Stone: The surgical removal of a bladder stone.

so first you have pain from a kidney stone, then you have to undergo surgery without anaesthetic and then you die!!!

it's interesting - though of course obvious when you think about it - that they didn't distinguish between the symptom and the underlying disease that killed you.

OUCH to dying of painful urination

Expat no I dearly wish! I am making a 'Memento Mori' book as part of an art project thingy. I am not quite as odd as that makes me sound

interesting thread, just goes to show how much, in medical terms, we take for granted nowadays :)

oh an abscess.

Here's a lucky one who got rid of his (and how!)
theimpostume.blogspot.com/

Sniggering!

1665 was the Great Plague year, when they also helpfully exported it to Derbyshire. However the notion that the Great Fire (which was blamed on The Papists) cleansed the city of it is a myth. I learned that on QI.

Scarlett please tell me what you are doing. Please!

Ooo Oooo Oooo - 121 dead merely of Teeth.

ow, ow, bloody ow.

No wonder there was a trend for whipping all the teeth out at 21 and getting some nice smart bone falsies.

intriguing project, scarletP. is that your work or hobby? wonderful to have an excuse to dig around like this!

Abscesses. Ouch

Hello Ariel dear, I wondered if you'd be along soon!

See ref. to memento mori book.

OMG Expat a whole blog being intellectual and historickal about boils! BLISS!

Teeth must be an abcess leading to general infection / sceptacaemia no?

Did they really switch to false teeth at 21? Again with no anaesthetic?!? Thankk god I'm alive now not then!

ExP, it's a hobby. There is a huge art project going on in New York called the Sketchbook project where you get given a little sketchbook, fill it in to whatever theme you like, then sent it off. It gets archived in a New York arts library, and 1 double page spread from each is reproduced in a big art book thingy. My pal enrolled me in it when I sank into an irretrievable depression after finishing my PhD

Don't make me sound stalky! I clicked on thread because it was intriguing. Didn't notice your name on it

I'm surprised about the selectivity of the list. Surely they would have recognised cancer by then, for example? I know it was a bit less common, but surely there would have been some deaths from Growthes, for example?

Choux a proper historian will know better than me - ARiel might know - but yes I believe this was often a gift to young women in wealthier households. Not sure if it was as early as 1665 mind!

Might surfeit include choking? I seem to remember there was a royal who choked to death on lampreys...

Ariel there is one dead of Canker, but I don't think that's the same as cancer - isn't a canker a huge open sore thing???

Incidentally 309 died of Feaver, this being the second highest cause of death after the PLague. That must be from anything causing a serious infection...