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

Ooo Barnaby you're a geenyus, thanks!

I feel WAY too much pride that there's a few of my recommends on there

I ordered that book "the history of womens bodies" from our local library on Tuesday and it is in now. I am off now to get it and a packet of choc hob nobs and that is my afternoon

great! make sure you pause between biscuits to post the juiciest bits on here.

Well done BarnabyMirage!

Was just browsing in a local charity shop yesterday and came across this little gem for just £2.50 in hardback.

Plague Pox and Pestilence: Disease in History

Bargain!

That book looks brilliant. Look at the price new!

I have ordered it (not new! )
Sadly Amazon have stopped free delivery to Australia for £25 (must have been a Christmas thing) so I'm getting that and a few others delivered to my Dad's instead and will pick them up when I get there. :)

[Basks in the warm glow of MN history geeky luff]

Is anyone here bidding on 'Presumed Curable' on ebay? Only I don't want to bid against anyone on this thread.

MoreBeta of your bargain.

at people actually reading my recommendations. That never happens in real life. I usually get a stiff polite smile and then they edge away a bit......

Can I recommend a few more:

The Pox
Put what where??
Suitcases from a mental hospital attic. Incredibly touching and cheaper than Presumed Curable (which is superb but ££££)
Montaillou - hard going but fascinating
Tuskagee Syphilis experiment
Floating Brothel. Female convicts and Australia. Loved this one, very readable

Oh,I liked 'The Floating Brothel' too R2

I like it here,none of my friend in RL reads,or if they do it is chick lit.I certainly couldn't have any conversations like these with them,they'd get a fixed grin and be backing away from me.If I recommended any of these books they'd be running away from me.

Just noticed I put mental hospital rather than state hospital in the book link above.

My DH is willing to listen to me, but not for too long, but other than that I haven't met anyone else who is interested in this stuff.

Don't know why, its a valid and fascinating field of study.

One of the first such books I read was Suetonius' Twelve Caesars when I was about 13. I gobbled it up and kept it in my school bag, it was the first inkling I had that history wasn't all clean and glorious

That book reminds me of reading I Claudius and Claudius the God when I was at Primary School.Goodness knows what the teachers thought,it is highly unsuitable for small girls I suppose-but enthralling.

I've just been looking at the history section in Kindle books and have ordered a selection of free ones,including 'A Dictionary of Vulgar Slang' written during Georgian times,a book about people sent to penal colonies,a book on crime and punishment in Victorian Edinburgh,letters of a prarie homesteader, a black history,and verbal history of the Apache people.Enough to be going on with for now.

The Broadmoor one on the Kindle's good, I've just finished that. Some bits were quite sad though, especially reading about the women who had babies whilst there.

And, I found out today (scientific not historical, but it shocked me!) that a kiwi's egg is about 40% the size of its body. All I could think was ouch.

Barnaby I read a biography of Rasputin (by his daughter, or granddaughter, I think) when I was seven and my teacher actually contacted my parents about it as he was worried about it's suitability. They'd long since given up on vetting my reading material. Cue Last Tango in Paris at twelve......

Tunip I'm very interested about your MIL and the toothbrush. I missed that thread. I'll be phoning my grandma in the morning to ask her what she did!

Barnaby I read those too! And got the big DVD box set when I got old enough. My mum didn't vet anything I read after I got to 10, when she set me loose in the adult department of the library. Before then it was teen/childrens books only.

Ouch about the kiwi egg. Makes me feel like I need to cross my legs.

A thread that may be of interest

Wow,I don't think I've ever "spoken" to so many people before who had such highly unsuitable reading habits as me as a child :o

My favourite book when I was 10 was MASH...I read the whole series. Although I did have to ask my mum what the clap was :o:o

I'm going to get some of those free ibooks/kindle books to have a browse through - they seem like fantastic bedtime reading...

My mum had a small but fascinating collection of true crime type books and my dad had some Dennis Wheatley books about devil worship and witches and such. I found these quite early on and read them a few pages at a time when my mum was busy elsewhere.

Jane Eyre was quite an influence with the madwoman in the attic and of course the Greek Myths and Legends with all the bestiality, weird punishments and random killings.

Interesting that it doesn't seem to have done any of us any harm, other than an abiding interest in the more human side of history. DD is 6 and I'll be much more confident letting her have free reign of my shelves when she gets a bit older.

OOh,R2 was 'The Devil Rides Out' one of the Denis Wheatley books? My dad had that one and one other whose title I can't remember.I read TDRO when I was at Primary school too and absolutely loved it.

Like you say,it doesn't do you any harm.I'm quite happy for DD1 [8] to choose her own books too.She is an odd child,like her mother I suppose.The other night I went top check on her after she'd gone to bed and she was explaining to her 6 year old sister about how WW2 started,including the invasion of Poland.

Barnaby I think so. Was one of the characters Tanith? Haven't read it in years. The one I remember clearly was 'The Irish Witch'. I got '60 days to live' out of the library in the hope of rekindling my childhood interest, but its awful!

DD is heavily into Star Wars, fantasy and Sci-fi, but she likes history too. Science is her main thing though, mostly because DH can take her into his work and show her expensive equipment and laboratories (complete with geeky female scientists) and I have books and a few artefacts to show her. When she gets old enough to read the books on my shelves though I have hope that I'll win back a little more of her interest.

My mum dragged me along with her to the sites she was helping to excavate (she was a volunteer archaeologist) and one of my earliest memories is being given a box of animal jaw bones to look at and being told which animal was which. I don't think its any wonder I turned out the way I have!

Your DD sounds fabulous, odd children are the best!

odd children are the best

So glad I'm not the only person whose teachers expressed concern over their reading habits
Voracious child reader that I was I ran out of 'suitable ' reading very quick so my mum let me loose on her library... Eyebrows were raised when I read the whole set of Tom sharpe books at 12 but with hindsight I didn't understand the rude bits so when I re-read them as an adult I gained a whole new perspective
Although my physics teacher was quite intrigued how much I liked Asimov at 11 as he assumed that it would be too difficult to grasp - easy writer to read on difficult topics

Wonky I read those too! And Asimov. I went to the library twice a week for years and read everything from Point Horror to classics to clan of the cave bear.

Odd children grow into very interesting adults

Going back to steam/powered vibrators (well, why not?), it was quite common in the early 20th century for women suffering from hysteria to be treated with an electric-powered vibrator by their doctor. In fact, sometimes the doctor would stimulate a 'hysterical' woman's genitals with his hands until she experienced "hysterical paroxysm"...