Fascinating causes of death 1632

How much suffering that list represents. Science has given us so much.

11 died of grief. Probably still happens but it will be described differently now. I know of two couples where the surviving partner died weeks after the first.

Only one death bit by a mad dog.
In 2023 there were 20 deaths caused by dogs. Not an improvement!

It's an extraordinary list. Scrofula was actually pretty nasty, tuberculosis of the lymph nodes in the neck. I remember it because one of my ancestors had it.

I noticed 470 from 'teeth' and that makes you realise how important teeth are and how serious infection under a tooth can be. How much they would have suffered, all of them really. 😢🙏🌺

I remember the vicar’s wife suffered from TB in her lymph nodes years ago when we lived in a Devon village. She survived and recovered😊. Probably thanks to anti-biotics?

When you remember that they had no useful treatment or medicines it's even more tragic. Doctors usually made things worse with their appalling remedies. Herbal treatments might have helped in some cases but anyone using them would have been accused of witchcraft.

anyone using them would have been accused of witchcraft. And, if found guilty, pressed to death presumably☹️!

I wonder what scared the poor ‘affrighted’ person to death?

Church burial records rarely mention cause of death but on my family tree are several accidents, smallpox and ‘the bloody flux’. You can see when there was an epidemic by the big increase in deaths, often several children from the same family dying close together.
When a marriage is followed by a young woman’s death it was probably in childbirth and often mother and newborn buried together.
The diseases of old age which most of us will die from were rare or undiagnosed long ago.

I think that bloody flux is a form of dysentery.

Mollygo

Only one death bit by a mad dog.
In 2023 there were 20 deaths caused by dogs. Not an improvement!

Not 20 in london, I don't think...

Someone in my family "died of decline" when she was a baby in the 1850s. She died at sea when the family was emigrating so I presume she was buried at sea.

No idea where Valdali. Just the difference between 1 and 20.

Aldom

Yes BlueBelle lights are an old word for lungs. Not heard these days, but when I was a child my mother would buy lights from the butcher.
She boiled them to feed to our dog.

Yes, my mother bought them for the cat. They smelt absolutely vile when cooking.

This is so fascinating! I sent it to a Trumpian Maga anti vax friend who hates doctors, scientists and 'Big Pharma' (Witchcraft) & thinks people lived much longer in the past.

Forgot to say one of my Gt grandfather's died of 'Decay of the aged' at 75.

Brilliant,, What a fascinating document

I have a very,very long genealogy on one side of the family and people most definitely died much sooner amongst my lot. Even the ‘posh’ ones !

Would be lovely to have that on a death certificate, died due to visitation by God, instead of some doom mongering disease.

What is sad is how many of these people would have survived if they had access to antibiotics. It is easy to forget what a life saver they are.

Aldom Me too! A pair of cows lungs were unhooked from the fridge, slung dow on the chopping board and 6d worth was packed up in cream coloured paper, boiled and cut up in cubes for our cros lab/setter

Really fascinating.

Witzend

I wonder what scared the poor ‘affrighted’ person to death?

Maybe a visitation from God!

Teeth seemed to be quite high.

We may be revisiting this again. If we don't get more NHS Dentists.

I had to Google King's Evil; apparently it was a TB infection!