Fascinating causes of death 1632

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. 😢🙏🌺

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

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.

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

So intriguing, nanna.
Thanks be, for the NHS and modern meds.

Apparently “Cancer, and Wolf” is cancer and particularly nasty cancer where the flesh is eaten into

www.mylondon.news/news/nostalgia/most-bizarre-causes-death-london-22205672

I would guess that “several accidents” means that they just haven’t separated out different kinds of accident, rather than all these people having died of several!?

Fascinating post nanna8

That is absolutely fascinating, nanna8

I wondered what French Pox was and apparently it was syphilis which was rife at that time. Countries blamed their enemies ie the French called it the Neapolitan disease.

Overlaid and starved at nurse - accidental smothering of an infant and starvation often caused by a wet nurse having too many babies to feed at one time.
Poor little souls.

Teeth - 470.
How horrid.

Doesnt surprise me.

Being “prest to death” must have been pretty horrible too!

...as others have said!

Rising of the Lights
I had to look up - it's a seventeenth-century term for any death associated with respiratory trouble.

Doodledog

I feel for the poor souls who were killed by several accidents - surely one is bad enough.

I was just about to raise that!

In "David Copperfield" ( Dickens ), Mr Micawber was frequently heard to exclaim " Oh my lights and liver!! Oh my liver and lights! "

That one was obviously buried deep inside my brain, and just popped out while reading this thread. We "did" David Copperfield for A levels ( 1974 ), so it has been buried a long time!

xxx

“Cancer, and Wolf” was interesting. I wonder if Wolf referred to Lupus, or whether someone was actually killed by a wolf!!

Cancer rate seems rather low for what I presume was a common cause then as now.
Possibly it was put down as other causes, i.e. consumption?

It's a miracle we are all here. Poor soles. Suddenly seems best option.

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.

I think my preference would have been to die of ‘Suddenly’, that sounds as though the least suffering was involved.

Rising of the lights … apparently lights were lungs and rising was swelling so it was a breathing problem ie asthma, bronchitis etc
Isn’t this interesting !

So ‘imposture’ was an internal abscess with puss

“Affrighted” presumably means some pour soul died of fright! Lovely term though.

Kings Evil was apparently a disease called scrofula which eventually just went away by itself but gave rise to the myth that it could be cured by a touch from the monarch!

I wonder what Impostume , rising of the lights (98 gone doing that) and Kings Evil were?

I feel for the poor souls who were killed by several accidents - surely one is bad enough.

It sounds like it, I think.
Quite a poetic way of putting it, though.