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

Please may I go back to this:

"Add message | Report | Message poster cazboldy Tue 07-Feb-12 11:05:04
www.elizabethfiles.com/mary-seymour-daughter-of-catherine-parr-and-thomas-seymour/5589/

just found this.

They think she died at about 2 years old"

I had no idea at all that Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour had a daughter who didn't die at birth. That's really interesting - thank you, cazboldy.

PS: sorry for breaking in to the horsey talk!

thank you Princess, but can't take credit for that.... Saggy brought her up

returns to "the tack room"

I've just been reading a book on the Black Death (interest sparked again by this thread) and it was talking about biblical plagues and made reference to a plague of hemorrhoids that God smote the Philistines with.

Checked the Bible and its true...

'1 Samuel 5:6 And the hand of Jehovah was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he laid them waste, and smote them with hemorrhoids, Ashdod and its borders'

'1 Samuel 5:12 and the men that died not were smitten with the hemorrhoids; and the cry of the city went up to heaven.'

Apparently they asked what they should do about it and this was the answer:

1 Samuel 6:4 Then they said, What is the trespass-offering which we shall return to him? And they said, Five golden hemorrhoids, and five golden mice, the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague is upon them all, and upon your lords. (DBY)

1 Samuel 6:5 And ye shall make images of your hemorrhoids, and images of your mice that destroy the land, and give glory to the God of Israel: perhaps he will lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land. (DBY)

(quotes from Biblos.com)

Some of the translations are more coy and say tumours in their secret parts.

Previously my favourite bible story was the one in Kings about the prophet who was teased by children for being bald and God sent two bears to eat forty-two of the children....but I think this one surpasses it .

Make images of your hemorrhoids?

But...hang on...an offering of five golden hemmorhoids? Really?

:o

You know what I would love. And what would be SO useful.

If some gorgeous, lovely and kind fellow history geek loving this thread MN'er (someone at a proper computer not a frickin annoying little tablet) would gather all the book suggestions and links together in one post. I want to get them all but can't face the thought of digging back through all zillion pages.

Would be so useful and appreciated...

Hey! No tongues!

I saw Something Interesting about teeth on the box not long ago. In the Roman, Dark Age and early medieval periods their teeth were quite good. Relatively speaking. Look at a skull belonging to a person who died at the same age from the Renaissance onwards and they will probably have a mouthful of rotting molars, because people got so addicted to sugar and never cleaned their teeth.

The Romans used toothpicks. And some kind of powder to rub their teeth with. I just remember it had charcoal in (presumably to freshen the breath, like in a cooker hood now?) because I thought charcoal wouldn't make your teeth look very clean! (Disclaimer: I was about seven when I learned that)

Well, well. Activated charcoal has been used for its healing & purification properties since Ancient Egypt but only recently re-discovered!

And now I really must close this browser ...

I will never forget reading about this in The Green Pharmacy by Barbara Griggs -

"He administered to her so violent a cathartic that the wretched woman was purged not only of bloody stools but of yards of her own intestines, and died."

eek!

that's horrific!

People used sticks that they chewed until the ends were frayed in the past, Wikipedia also says they rubbed baking soda and chalk against their teeth.

Chinese used bristle toothbrushes from the thirteenth century at least, but the first one is mentioned in English history in 1690. Pig bristles and badger hairs were used.

And apparently tooth brushing didn't become routine in the USA until the Second World War when soldiers were told to brush daily.

jabberwocky thats horrible.

On a similar note Sir Thomas Overbury was killed in the early seventeenth century with a poisoned enema. What a way to go.

Charcoal is used to cleanse farts

MIL didn't brush her teeth when she was a child in the 30s. She found out about toothbrushes from someone at school and came home and asked her dad if he could have one, and he laughed at her and showed her how to stick her finger up the chimney and get some soot out if she wanted to clean her teeth.

I was shocked and horrified when she told me. I rushed straight onto Mumsnet to post about it and people were supremely uninterested and surprised that I was surprised.

Then I had to phone round all the older people on my side of the family and quiz them about their childhood dental hygiene and it seemed they all had toothbrushes, despite not having bathrooms or indoor toilets or stuff like that so hardly being what you would call posh. They are all about 10 years younger than MIL so there may have been a shift between the 30s and 40s (war related perhaps) or it may just be one of those random things.

do you think it's to do with the development of nylon too? When did toothbrushes start having nylon bristles instead of badger or other unsuspecting bristly animal?

I thought badgers had quite soft hair - where are the bristles then? Shaving brushes were/are made from badger hair and it's very soft and long. Apparently, and I don't know how true this is, the saying "bald as a badger" is a shortening of "bald as a badger's arse", where they used to take the hairs to make the brushes.
:)

Toothbrushes - that's interesting, how recent the dental hygiene thing is.

I'd never heard 'bald as a badger' - my dh always says 'rough as a badger's arse'!
But perhaps that's just how he imagines a badger's arse, I don't know if he has ever seen one.

(he has seen badgers, but I mean I don't know if he actually got a look at their arses.)

(or felt their arses, which is what you would have to do to know if it was rough or not.)

' Animal bristle was not an ideal material as it retains bacteria and does not dry well, and the bristles often fell out.' (wiki)

First nylon toothbrush, 1938.

It all falls into place.

more entertainment value along the Bald Badger lines. Apparently it varies between the explanation I gave before, people never having heard of it, the idea being that the white stripe between the black ones making a badger look bald, and the "bald" being a shortened version of piebald (which means white and (usually) black in colour)

oh I do like historical jokes. My grandma used to tell one about a curate visiting a quarry which she had got in big trouble for telling as a teenager because it was disrespectful of the Church.

Badger bristle brush on Amazon for those who want to try it out

I actually feel a bit sick now at the thought of putting that in my mouth.

How do they clean the bristles?

I don't want to put something that tastes of badger arse in my mouth.

Oh my God, on this one the review says that the bristles came out in their mouth.....

Hearts A list [I wanted one too]
Faber's Reportage
Bechamo or Patsteur
The Baroque Cycle
Books of CJ Sansom
Montacute House
Nora Lofts
The Emperor of all Maladies
Extrodinary Hunter-father of modern surgery
The Giant,O'Brien-Hilary Mantel
1066 and all that
Harris's book of Covent Garden Ladies
The Painted Veil
A parcel of patterns
Medieval death
Children of winter
The diary of Samuel Pepys
The Year of Wonders
Doomsday Book
The years of rice and salt
Katharine-Anya Seton
Journal of the plague year-Defoe
A history of women's bodies
Birth,a history
Midwives tale,Martha Ballard
Presumed Curable
Women at work
Not only the dangerous trades
Why didn't they tell the horse?

BarnabyMirage I luffs you. Truly. :o

oh that's great BarnabyMirage thanks!