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

27 ladies riding sidesaddle out hunting Do you live in a time warp, Mirage?

I understood that sidesaddle riding is bad for your back (all that twisting) and the horse's back (uneven weight distribution).

I'd love to have a go, mind you..

Great thread, everyone. I've been lurking and enjoying it for days.

I read that the Egyptians used cotton flax for the pessaries.
I'm going to try side saddle this year. Dd wants to try so we are going to a local riding centre. (She would look fabulous side saddle on her gorgeous black traditional shetland!) It's very secure apparently. Your left leg is wedged under the leaping head and the right is hooked over. If you get scared, you just clamp your legs together harder!

for all you avid side-saddlers - just so you can see where the info came from and that they have developed a lot since the first ones!

Marking my place - I don't want to miss any of this!

I have ridden side saddle a few times, and really like it.

Jumping is fine, you just have to mind you are not thrown off balance.

Trotting is awkward, so most people try to go from walk to canter.

Oh Saggy - a shetland and a side saddle - that would be so sweet!

We have a shetland too

Can I just ensure ^this will not turn into a horsey thread>?

Mirage, that is fascinating about the detachable skirts!

Did no-one else watch Flambards and read this book? It's by the star of the tv adaptation and it's her account of how she learnt to ride sidesaddle, having lied about her riding ability in order to get the part.

I've ONLY ever been on a horse sidesaddle, because apart from donkeys at the beach the only time I've ever been on a horse was while doing 15th and 16th century re-enacting. It wasn't an authentic saddle though, it had a pommel. It certainly felt very safe and secure, I don't have trouble imagining people hunting on them.

Italic fail.

This will not turn into a horsey thread?

I think the thread is entitled to take a meander through horsiness, seeing as how they were fairly important to daily life in History. It will move on to something else soon

OK, but no horsey owning type things

But I will tell you a good horsey history thing. The one about the two brother officers in WWI whose battalions passed each other in a muddy lane in France. The brothers were so filthy and exhausted they didn't recognise each other, but the horses did and whickered in greeting and nosed each other

I think it's an Elizabeth Jane Howard anecdote from the her father and uncle in the war.

sorry

Sorry too :)

Steam engines were hardly on topic either although Wiki tells me that in 1663 Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquis of Worcester, published a selection of his inventions one of which was a sort of steam pump. Sadly he died in 1665 before he could commercialise it.

Being dragged to your death by a galloping horse must have been quite common in 1665 as well?

First recorded steam engine

OK OK I SAID SORRY!!

Blessed are the cheesemakers.

yes, and children getting trampled in the street, and carts and carriages overturning.

But did the aeolipile KILL anyone horribly?

Could have, Tunip, could have. Lots of potential for narsty accidents there.

Oooh look!

A list of really nasty boiler explosions.

Names, dates, places ...... and most importantly the number of deaths.

Most excellent.

An excellent addition to the thread, MoreBeta!

MoreBeta the fact that you can find a list of boiler explosions is just fabulous.Who'd have thought it?

Thumbwitch Thanks for the link to the sidesaddle museum.I got stupidly excited though and thought you could actually go and visit it.That would have been a fun day out. I am going to let the dds learn how to ride side saddle and my mum has already volunteered to make them habits,but they will have wear riding hats and a veil,not top hats though.

I have nothing else horsey to add apart from the fact that my grandad saw his best friend trampled to death by a pony and had an aversion to them after that.Which was unfortunate because his dad was a horse dealer.

I'm sorry!

I thought that a question about the effect of sidesaddle riding on the human body (and the horse) gave it a bit of a sciency direction...

I am reading Bill Bryson's 'At Home' which has a lot of interesting historical facts.According to him,18th century people were so addicted to sugar,despite its expense that they ate it until their teeth turned black,and if they didn't turn black naturally,they blackened them artificially to show how wealthy they were.

It gives a whole new dimension to the folks appearing on Jeremy Kyle-stick them in a time machine and their teeth would be the subject of envy.