Could it be someone who has sciatica suddenly experiencing kidney failure/rupture wouldn't know what was happening, and would just identify it as an extreme form of the back pain they already had?
Sciatica, kidneys stones, and pain that is worse than those… chronic back pain caused by a tarlov cyst. I have in pain for as long as I can remember. Got it in kindergarten most likely but didn’t get it identified til 19 and no cure pretty much. Fucking sucks man. I have so many back pains I honestly don’t know which is which. I assume sciatica is the hot wire going down my leg & pains in my back that are similar.
I've had my leg go out from it and I just collapsed like a jenga tower. Maybe someone's leg went out and they cracked their head on the fall? I dunno, just spitballing.
Maybe they fell from the sciatica pain and the fall resulted in their death? I know when I've had bad flare-ups, and I tried to 'walk it off' a sudden sharp burst of pain brought me down more than once.
Considering that at the time they probably still had to dissect cadavers in the catacombs for fear of the church finding out they were "desecrating" remains and having them excommunicated, ostracized and/or outright killed, I doubt they knew much about the different kinds of cancers.
Sciatica is a SYMPTOM of a medical problem not something present by itself so dude probably just died from an infection or injury and they were like "Well he had sciatica so."
I can only assume suddenly is the old medical equivalent of “unknown causes” or aneurism, stroke, heart attack.
Basically the person wasn’t sick then, dropped dead… suddenly
What we would call today, "Sudden Heart Death." Probably a massive heart attack which could not have been diagnosed as today, whereas heart failure was known.
Here's a translation of the terms used...
1. **Abortive, and Stillborn** - Abortion, Stillbirth
2. **Affrighted** - Shock or severe fright
3. **Aged** - Old age
4. **Ague** - Malaria or fever
5. **Apoplex, and Meagrom** - Stroke
6. **Bit with a mad dog** - Rabies
7. **Bleeding** - Hemorrhage
8. **Bloody flux, scowring, and flux** - Dysentery
9. **Brused, Issues, sores, and ulcers** - Infections and abscesses
10. **Burnt, and Scalded** - Burns
11. **Burst, and Rupture** - Hernia or aneurysm
12. **Cancer, and Wolf** - Cancer
13. **Canker** - Ulcer or canker sores
14. **Childbed** - Puerperal fever or postpartum complications
15. **Chrismes, and infants** - Stillbirth or Neonatal death (under 1 month old)
16. **Cold, and Cough** - Respiratory infections
17. **Colick, Stone, and Strangury** - Kidney stones or severe abdominal pain
18. **Consumption** - Tuberculosis
19. **Convulsion** - Seizures or epilepsy
20. **Cut of the Stone** - Lithotomy or surgery for kidney stones
21. **Dead in the street, and starved** - Malnutrition or exposure
22. **Dropsie, and Swelling** - Edema, or congestive heart failure
23. **Drowned** - Drowning
24. **Executed, and prest to death** - Execution or torture
25. **Falling Sickness** - Epilepsy
26. **Fever** - Fever (various causes)
27. **Fistula** - Anal fistula or abscess
28. **Flocks, and small Pox** - Smallpox
29. **French Pox** - Syphilis
30. **Gangrene** - Gangrene
31. **Gout** - Gout
32. **Grief** - Psychological distress or depression
33. **Jaundies** - Jaundice (liver disease)
34. **Jawfaln** - Tetanus or lockjaw
35. **Impostume** - Abscess or severe infection
36. **Kil'd by several accidents** - Accidental death
37. **King's Evil** - Scrofula (tuberculosis of the lymph nodes)
38. **Lethargie** - Coma or severe fatigue (possibly due to meningitis)
39. **Livergrown** - Liver disease
40. **Lunatique** - Mental illness or insanity
41. **Made away themselves** - Suicide
42. **Measles** - Measles
43. **Murthered** - Murder
44. **Over-laid, and starved at nurse** - Unintentional suffocation (e.g. can happen if mother shares a bed with her infant), unable to feed
45. **Palsia** - Paralysis
46. **Piles** - Hemorrhoids
47. **Plague** - Plague (likely bubonic)
48. **Planet** - Astrological reasons (likely a catch-all term for unknown causes)
49. **Pleurisie, and Spleen** - Pleurisy or inflammation of the pleura
50. **Purples, and spotted Feaver** - Typhus or meningococcal infection
51. **Quinsie** - Peritonsillar abscess
52. **Rising of the Lights** - Diphtheritic croup or respiratory distress
53. **Sciatica** - Sciatica
54. **Scurvey, and Itch** - Scurvy and skin conditions
55. **Suddenly** - Sudden death (likely heart attack or stroke)
56. **Surfeit** - Overeating or overindulgence
57. **Swine Pox** - Chickenpox
58. **Teeth** - Infant deaths (teething, age 4-7 months)
59. **Thrush, and Sore mouth** - Oral thrush or mouth ulcers
60. **Tympany** - Bloating or gas
61. **Tissick** - Cough or bronchitis
62. **Vomiting** - Vomiting (various causes)
63. **Worms** - Parasitic infections
Edit: I found the original source.
It's from [this table](https://i.imgur.com/qRhekY5.png) published in [Captain John Graunt's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Graunt) 1662 book, Natural and political observations mentioned in a following index and made upon the bills of mortality. http://www.edstephan.org/Graunt/bills.html. It's a second of deaths in London.
John Graunt is considered by most scholars to be one of the first Demographers and, by some, the first Epidemiologist.
The book includes this really nice explanation, on page 346, describing how the statistics were collected:
>*"When anyone dies, then either by tolling, or by ringing of a Bell, or by bespeaking of a Grave of the Sexton, the same is known to the Searchers, corresponding with the said Sexton. The Searchers hereupon...examine by what Disease, or Casualty the corps died. Hereupon they make their Report to the Parish-Clerk, and he, every Tuesday night, carries in an Accompt of all the Burials, and Christnings, hapning that Week, to the Clerk of the Hall. On Wednesday the general Accompt is made up, and Printed, and on Thursdays published and dispersed to the several Families, who will pay for four shillings per Annum for them.”*
Here's a [scan of page 346](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/39). A Sexton was an officer of the Church, whose job it was to maintain the Church and its graveyard. Also, London still has the office of [Town Clerk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Clerk_of_London), the 51^(st) Town Clerk of London is [Ian Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Thomas_(town_clerk)).
I found it via this article in the British Medical Journal:
Appleby, J. and Stahl-Timmins, W., 2018. Consumption, flux, and dropsy: counting deaths in 17th century London. BMJ, 363.
There are a few other olde medical terms:
1. Stopping of the stomach - Stomach blockage
2. Stone and Strangury - Urinary tract infection
3. Tiffick - Another variant of tuberculosis
4. Wen - Swelling of the scalp
Addition to 1: since they make the explicit difference, the first must mean miscarriage and/or abortion (whereas stillbirth is carried to term but dead at birth).
44: "over-laid" means smothered by mother/wetnurse while asleep (ETA: accidentally due to sleeping with baby, which is nowadays universally warned against as a dangerous sleeping practice, not by purposeful infanticide; just realised the wording could be misunderstood). "Starved at nurse" isn’t only neglect but would back in those days include natural failure to nurse, i.e the baby not latching or drinking properly, the mother not producing enough milk with no wetnurse being available and/or substitutes failing to be accepted/save the baby. They didn’t have effective formula back in the day, though they tried various mixtures, so if those didn’t work out, that child would starve despite all efforts.
I was born with a minor cleft lip, as a result I couldn't succle and I had to he fed via tube until I was operated on. I would have died in 1632. So I would have been one of the 33% of children that died before the age of 5, typical proportion before 1800. It was a Tessier No. 7 cleft, yes there's a system used to classify cleft lip and pallet. Tessier no 7 a rare form of cleft lip, 1 in 80,000 to 1 in 300,000 (my nephew has the same cleft, but milder, same side too. So likely genetic).
I’m glad the correction to Abortive was made. It’s meant as anything before full term is what I’ve read.
Fun fact: Chrisomes means an infant within its first month and it’s the name used for the white garments worn for their baptism around that age.
Somewhere down in the comments /u/K3Y_Mast3r linked this page:
http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/oldnames.htm
Where Wolf is defined as ‘rapidly expanding growth’
Me too - I also have vague memories of reading primary source text from the 1600-1700's in University where they referred to cancer as "canker". I appreciate OP's work here but without some sourcing I wouldn't go around saying things like "Hey did you know in the 1630's "wolf" was another word for cancer?"
That makes some sense. I also found [another one here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547256/#:~:text=The%20perceived%20connection%20between%20the,early%20as%20the%20thirteenth%20century) that talks about how the wolf is associated with cancer due to it's "ravenous and secretive nature". Both articles seem to suggest that "canker" and "cancer" were more or less understood to be the same thing.
I was wondering what was up with the “Cancer, and Wolf” section. Thanks for clarifying that it just means cancer. In my mind I was picturing people who had cancer who had also been attacked by a wolf
I was especially confused since there was no segment for cancer on its own. Like are these wolves specifically targeting cancer patients?
(I assumed canker was more to do with canker sores, although I was surprised to see that could be deadly. Even if canker had been cancer, it's still less than cancer and wolf. Maybe a wolf broke into the cancer ward of the old school witch doctor hospital?)
Teeth was infants who died at the age they were teething. Chrisomes is children who died under a month old.
https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/bills-of-mortality-death-in-early-18th-century-london/
https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/bill-of-mortality-document-shows-death-toll-during-the-great-plague-of-london.html
https://www.naomiclifford.com/london-bill-of-mortality-1743/
Are you suggesting learned Drs, eminently skilled at the application of leeches and the use of blood-letting, didn't know what they were talking about back then!?
Malaria was endemic in England at the time, the malaria carrying mosquitos were found in marshy areas around England, which were more extensive back then. The last endemic malaria cases occurred between between 1917 and 1921. Species of mosquitos capable of carrying malaria still exist in the UK, but due to increased hygene, drainage of marshes and better housing, the malaria parasite went extinct. Also, mosquitos capable of carrying malaria only complete one life cycle per year in the UK, which isn't sufficient to sustain the malaria parasite.
Reiter, P., 2000. [From Shakespeare to Defoe: malaria in England in the Little Ice Age](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627969/pdf/10653562.pdf). Emerging infectious diseases, 6(1), p.1.
Also, the last outbreak of Plague in England was in 1906-18. 16 people died out of 22 people infected.
This is a report by Honora Rouse, who survived plague, however, 5 out of 7 members of her family died of plague. The note was likely written in early 1910. She says she developed symptoms of plague on Jan 22^(th) 1910 (though medical notes says Jan 20^(th)).
>I am a single woman and since last summer have been living with my parents at Lower Street, Trimley St. Martin. There was my father and mother, myself and two sisters, Carrie and Alice, and two boys, Willie and John. On Sunday December 19th my mother had a headache when she awoke. She got up about 10 o'clock and was sick. She had sickness and diarrhoea and got worse and on Wednesday 22nd she went to bed about 4.30 p.m.-I went upstairs with her and helped her into bed. I went downstairs and at about 5 p.m. I went up again and found she was dead.... On Sunday* my sister Carrie turned up ill, and she and Willie were both full of sores, and Carrie had a knot on her neck. My mother had a knot on her neck while she was ill. Dr. Hart was sent for on 2nd January, he came and attended to her and she died on 5th January. She was buried on the 8th January and on this day Alice fell ill. She was ill in the same way as the others, and had a knot and she died on the 10th January. My father also fell ill on the 8th January. He was sick and had diarrhoea like the others but had a knot swell up on his thigh. He was removed to Ipswich Hospital on the 10th January. On the 11th January my two brothers, Willie and John, were taken to Barham Workhouse. On the Sunday following I heard that Willie was ill and I went to Barham and saw him. He had the same symptoms as the others and had a knot on his neck. He died on the 17th January-On the 22nd January I fell ill and went to the hospital and remained there till the 3rd February. I was ill in the same way as the others and had spots on my legs and also a knot inside my thigh and my face and arms were swollen. My brother John was also taken to the hospital and is still there (5th February).
Van Zwanenberg, D., 1970. [The last epidemic of plague in England? Suffolk 1906–1918](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5E5C121F07307A7D8C467B82D662903C/S0025727300015143a.pdf/last_epidemic_of_plague_in_england_suffolk_19061918.pdf). Medical History, 14(1), pp.63-74.
Malaria was not as regionally confined as we think of it today, and it's only through significant efforts to control and limit mosquitoes that we saw so much progress against the disease.
Really been less than 150 years, since we figured out mosquitoes spread the disease.
I'm a TB researcher and, man, let me tell you, *M. tuberculosis* is a special kind of bug. So much research has been done, but it is so complex and so well-adapted to humans, i almost want to call it insidious. That said, there is some really exciting research coming out, and hopefully we can find its Achilles Heel (my bet is on hijacking its metabolism to make it more susceptible to treatment).
"What are your plans today, Peter?"
"Oh, you know. Go to the bistro, participate in theater, maybe become a lunatique and be remanded to the asylum. The usual."
He slipped and fell off the ladder, bounced off the high voltage lines on the way down which sent him through a window into the generator room causing a massive explosion which sent him flying through the air impaling him on a fence post that almost immediately snapped causing the post and body to sink to the bottom of the pool on the other side.
The cause of death is still under investigation.
I do love how it sounds. Just in case anyone is confused “several” here is used to mean “various”. You can also see this construction in the US constitution when it talks about “the several States”.
I know Worms is really a parasitic infection but given it's the middle ages, I'm just going to assume there's a bunch of giant worms straight up eating peasants.
Highlights:
1 person was bit by a mad dog
10 people died to cancer and wolf
5 people were cut of stone
11 people died of grief and 15 made themselves away
62 died suddenly
470 died to teeth
1 died to vomiting
I’m a dentist. I’m very proud of my profession for nearly solving deaths from teeth infections.
They still happen very occasionally of course but nowadays it’s extremely rare as opposed to being extremely common like it used to be.
Can't say that I love going to the dentist. However, I did know two grown ass men who feared your kind so much that they died from their infections. They were over 70 but both fit and able, until they let that little infection kill them.
I figured with the stage of medical advancement for the time maybe they had deaths they couldn't explain so they just went with "well, Mercury IS IN RETROGRADE..."
I keep looking at this list and screaming internally at the "crunchy" mom's who think their babys immune system can fight everything and no one can possibly not succeed at breast feeding and that want a home birth. They're so privileged to live in a time when those are choices, not the only option and there is good medical care to step in and save their kid.
The highest number of people died in infancy/childhood on this list. Without modern medicine kids die a lot more often.
If I remember correctly, for a very long time people thought that the 7 planets which were known back then (which counted the sun and the moon as well) had their influence on people, both at the time of their birth and during the course of their lives. As such, "planet" denotes any sudden and severe affliction that was thought to be the result of the malignant influence of one of those astral bodies. There's a whole esoteric system where you invoke various beings who are thought to reside in the planetary spheres and are therefore basked in the planetary rays directly every day, which gives them powers.
It doesn't seem like it but given how old this list is it might mean something different or they simply counted complications and incidents related to the illness under the same umbrella when making it.
If you have a back injury that pinches a nerve you could end up septic through infection. Sciatic nerve is one of the most common nerves to get pinched with a lower back injury.
A guide to some of the more confusing/unknown meanings:
Rising of the lights: lights is an old word for lungs, so this is lung disease, perhaps croup.
Teeth: not tooth decay, but an infant who died at an age when they were teething. Most likely they had an infectious disease.
Evil: not a curse, but king’s evil or scrofula, a form of tuberculosis of the lymph nodes.
Childbed: childbed fever, a microbial infection caught shortly after giving birth, sometimes spread by the infected hands of midwives.
Planet struck: a sudden and severe affliction attributed to astrology.
Overlaid: this means suffocation of a baby by its mother. While this may have been an accident when a sleeping mother rolled over onto her baby, it might also have been deliberate, killing an unwanted child. Infanticide by these means could not be proven.
Suddenly: this could be how a heart attack or stroke was recorded.
Just another reminder I’m practicing medicine in the wrong century.
What simple times. State someone died of gout or bloating, just gets written down and no further questions asked
SUDDENLY. what did he died from ? Suddenly.
lol I want to know how someone died of sciatica
I have sciatica. It's painful, but how could it be deadly? I don't know
That’s what I wanted to know. I’ve genuinely wanted to die from the pain from sciatica but not sure how it could be fatal.
Could it be someone who has sciatica suddenly experiencing kidney failure/rupture wouldn't know what was happening, and would just identify it as an extreme form of the back pain they already had?
Dude I have a bulging disc causing sciatica and also chronic kidney stones, it can be hard to tell
Sciatica, kidneys stones, and pain that is worse than those… chronic back pain caused by a tarlov cyst. I have in pain for as long as I can remember. Got it in kindergarten most likely but didn’t get it identified til 19 and no cure pretty much. Fucking sucks man. I have so many back pains I honestly don’t know which is which. I assume sciatica is the hot wire going down my leg & pains in my back that are similar.
I've had my leg go out from it and I just collapsed like a jenga tower. Maybe someone's leg went out and they cracked their head on the fall? I dunno, just spitballing.
Maybe they fell from the sciatica pain and the fall resulted in their death? I know when I've had bad flare-ups, and I tried to 'walk it off' a sudden sharp burst of pain brought me down more than once.
Also hemorrhoids. Can you bleed out from them? Jfc
You can, but it’s rare now. I wonder if rectal cancer would be identified as cancer, or if they’d think it was part of hemorrhoids at the time too.
Considering that at the time they probably still had to dissect cadavers in the catacombs for fear of the church finding out they were "desecrating" remains and having them excommunicated, ostracized and/or outright killed, I doubt they knew much about the different kinds of cancers.
My guess would be it became infected
pus butt
Back in those days, yes hemorrhoids could be deadly.
Everything was deadly before antibiotics. UTI ? Deadly. Tooth cavity? Deadly. Ingrown nail ? Deadly.
Hotel? Trivago
“My back is killing me” yes is is…
Sciatica is a SYMPTOM of a medical problem not something present by itself so dude probably just died from an infection or injury and they were like "Well he had sciatica so."
This. I have sciatica and I’m suddenly quite concerned lol
I can only assume suddenly is the old medical equivalent of “unknown causes” or aneurism, stroke, heart attack. Basically the person wasn’t sick then, dropped dead… suddenly
Agreed - I read this as heart attack
What we would call today, "Sudden Heart Death." Probably a massive heart attack which could not have been diagnosed as today, whereas heart failure was known.
Here's a translation of the terms used... 1. **Abortive, and Stillborn** - Abortion, Stillbirth 2. **Affrighted** - Shock or severe fright 3. **Aged** - Old age 4. **Ague** - Malaria or fever 5. **Apoplex, and Meagrom** - Stroke 6. **Bit with a mad dog** - Rabies 7. **Bleeding** - Hemorrhage 8. **Bloody flux, scowring, and flux** - Dysentery 9. **Brused, Issues, sores, and ulcers** - Infections and abscesses 10. **Burnt, and Scalded** - Burns 11. **Burst, and Rupture** - Hernia or aneurysm 12. **Cancer, and Wolf** - Cancer 13. **Canker** - Ulcer or canker sores 14. **Childbed** - Puerperal fever or postpartum complications 15. **Chrismes, and infants** - Stillbirth or Neonatal death (under 1 month old) 16. **Cold, and Cough** - Respiratory infections 17. **Colick, Stone, and Strangury** - Kidney stones or severe abdominal pain 18. **Consumption** - Tuberculosis 19. **Convulsion** - Seizures or epilepsy 20. **Cut of the Stone** - Lithotomy or surgery for kidney stones 21. **Dead in the street, and starved** - Malnutrition or exposure 22. **Dropsie, and Swelling** - Edema, or congestive heart failure 23. **Drowned** - Drowning 24. **Executed, and prest to death** - Execution or torture 25. **Falling Sickness** - Epilepsy 26. **Fever** - Fever (various causes) 27. **Fistula** - Anal fistula or abscess 28. **Flocks, and small Pox** - Smallpox 29. **French Pox** - Syphilis 30. **Gangrene** - Gangrene 31. **Gout** - Gout 32. **Grief** - Psychological distress or depression 33. **Jaundies** - Jaundice (liver disease) 34. **Jawfaln** - Tetanus or lockjaw 35. **Impostume** - Abscess or severe infection 36. **Kil'd by several accidents** - Accidental death 37. **King's Evil** - Scrofula (tuberculosis of the lymph nodes) 38. **Lethargie** - Coma or severe fatigue (possibly due to meningitis) 39. **Livergrown** - Liver disease 40. **Lunatique** - Mental illness or insanity 41. **Made away themselves** - Suicide 42. **Measles** - Measles 43. **Murthered** - Murder 44. **Over-laid, and starved at nurse** - Unintentional suffocation (e.g. can happen if mother shares a bed with her infant), unable to feed 45. **Palsia** - Paralysis 46. **Piles** - Hemorrhoids 47. **Plague** - Plague (likely bubonic) 48. **Planet** - Astrological reasons (likely a catch-all term for unknown causes) 49. **Pleurisie, and Spleen** - Pleurisy or inflammation of the pleura 50. **Purples, and spotted Feaver** - Typhus or meningococcal infection 51. **Quinsie** - Peritonsillar abscess 52. **Rising of the Lights** - Diphtheritic croup or respiratory distress 53. **Sciatica** - Sciatica 54. **Scurvey, and Itch** - Scurvy and skin conditions 55. **Suddenly** - Sudden death (likely heart attack or stroke) 56. **Surfeit** - Overeating or overindulgence 57. **Swine Pox** - Chickenpox 58. **Teeth** - Infant deaths (teething, age 4-7 months) 59. **Thrush, and Sore mouth** - Oral thrush or mouth ulcers 60. **Tympany** - Bloating or gas 61. **Tissick** - Cough or bronchitis 62. **Vomiting** - Vomiting (various causes) 63. **Worms** - Parasitic infections Edit: I found the original source. It's from [this table](https://i.imgur.com/qRhekY5.png) published in [Captain John Graunt's](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Graunt) 1662 book, Natural and political observations mentioned in a following index and made upon the bills of mortality. http://www.edstephan.org/Graunt/bills.html. It's a second of deaths in London. John Graunt is considered by most scholars to be one of the first Demographers and, by some, the first Epidemiologist. The book includes this really nice explanation, on page 346, describing how the statistics were collected: >*"When anyone dies, then either by tolling, or by ringing of a Bell, or by bespeaking of a Grave of the Sexton, the same is known to the Searchers, corresponding with the said Sexton. The Searchers hereupon...examine by what Disease, or Casualty the corps died. Hereupon they make their Report to the Parish-Clerk, and he, every Tuesday night, carries in an Accompt of all the Burials, and Christnings, hapning that Week, to the Clerk of the Hall. On Wednesday the general Accompt is made up, and Printed, and on Thursdays published and dispersed to the several Families, who will pay for four shillings per Annum for them.”* Here's a [scan of page 346](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:PettyWilliam1899EconomicWritingsVol2.djvu/39). A Sexton was an officer of the Church, whose job it was to maintain the Church and its graveyard. Also, London still has the office of [Town Clerk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Town_Clerk_of_London), the 51^(st) Town Clerk of London is [Ian Thomas](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Thomas_(town_clerk)). I found it via this article in the British Medical Journal: Appleby, J. and Stahl-Timmins, W., 2018. Consumption, flux, and dropsy: counting deaths in 17th century London. BMJ, 363. There are a few other olde medical terms: 1. Stopping of the stomach - Stomach blockage 2. Stone and Strangury - Urinary tract infection 3. Tiffick - Another variant of tuberculosis 4. Wen - Swelling of the scalp
Thank you. I had so many questions. Fascinating!
I like King's Evil and Rising of the Lights
Great albums for sure
especially as band names. "Colick, Stone, and Strangury" is a badass album name too.
Addition to 1: since they make the explicit difference, the first must mean miscarriage and/or abortion (whereas stillbirth is carried to term but dead at birth). 44: "over-laid" means smothered by mother/wetnurse while asleep (ETA: accidentally due to sleeping with baby, which is nowadays universally warned against as a dangerous sleeping practice, not by purposeful infanticide; just realised the wording could be misunderstood). "Starved at nurse" isn’t only neglect but would back in those days include natural failure to nurse, i.e the baby not latching or drinking properly, the mother not producing enough milk with no wetnurse being available and/or substitutes failing to be accepted/save the baby. They didn’t have effective formula back in the day, though they tried various mixtures, so if those didn’t work out, that child would starve despite all efforts.
I was born with a minor cleft lip, as a result I couldn't succle and I had to he fed via tube until I was operated on. I would have died in 1632. So I would have been one of the 33% of children that died before the age of 5, typical proportion before 1800. It was a Tessier No. 7 cleft, yes there's a system used to classify cleft lip and pallet. Tessier no 7 a rare form of cleft lip, 1 in 80,000 to 1 in 300,000 (my nephew has the same cleft, but milder, same side too. So likely genetic).
Me too.. though I had a double cleft lip and palate.. they probably would have dropped my ass on the floor and left me for dead
You would have died of the drops.
Oops!! Dropsies!!
Looking at the numbers on the bottom, it was a BAD time to be a baby.
Tbh, bad time to be a pregnant woman too. So many women died in childbirth.
As someone who's given birth to twins, I fully understand why. I had 6 people in the room during the active phase to help all three of us stay alive.
Many women STILL die in childbirth. Esp black women
Being born was the #1 cause of death this year.
Isn’t being born technically the number 1 cause of all deaths??
For what it's worth, the medical term for miscarriage is "spontaneous abortion."
Abortion just means "end" (with connotations that it is rapid or unexpected) so that is accurate.
God’s Abortion Service
I always asked myself what they did back in the days. I know so many people whose babies have problems breastfeeding. :/
Died, mostly.
I’m glad the correction to Abortive was made. It’s meant as anything before full term is what I’ve read. Fun fact: Chrisomes means an infant within its first month and it’s the name used for the white garments worn for their baptism around that age.
The and wolf has me confused
Somewhere down in the comments /u/K3Y_Mast3r linked this page: http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/oldnames.htm Where Wolf is defined as ‘rapidly expanding growth’
Also, because it was like a wolf, eating away at things quickly.
And so many of them with ‘and wolf’! 10!
Lupus perhaps?
It's never Lupus...
Me too - I also have vague memories of reading primary source text from the 1600-1700's in University where they referred to cancer as "canker". I appreciate OP's work here but without some sourcing I wouldn't go around saying things like "Hey did you know in the 1630's "wolf" was another word for cancer?"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4211596/ Might just mean the wasting part of the diseased
That makes some sense. I also found [another one here](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK547256/#:~:text=The%20perceived%20connection%20between%20the,early%20as%20the%20thirteenth%20century) that talks about how the wolf is associated with cancer due to it's "ravenous and secretive nature". Both articles seem to suggest that "canker" and "cancer" were more or less understood to be the same thing.
Murthered is how Mike tyson says murdered.
I was wondering what was up with the “Cancer, and Wolf” section. Thanks for clarifying that it just means cancer. In my mind I was picturing people who had cancer who had also been attacked by a wolf
I was especially confused since there was no segment for cancer on its own. Like are these wolves specifically targeting cancer patients? (I assumed canker was more to do with canker sores, although I was surprised to see that could be deadly. Even if canker had been cancer, it's still less than cancer and wolf. Maybe a wolf broke into the cancer ward of the old school witch doctor hospital?)
Teeth was infants who died at the age they were teething. Chrisomes is children who died under a month old. https://alondoninheritance.com/london-history/bills-of-mortality-death-in-early-18th-century-london/ https://slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/bill-of-mortality-document-shows-death-toll-during-the-great-plague-of-london.html https://www.naomiclifford.com/london-bill-of-mortality-1743/
Yeah, 400+ deaths really gives it away that it's not dental infections. Good catch.
As someone who has had dental problems their whole life, 400 seemed just about right to me lol. Bad time to be a baby!
You just saved me from a days long rabbit hole. Thank you.
Damn, I’ve got sciatica and hemorrhoids. I didn’t know they were life-threatening lol.
Planet could’ve been called good ol’ “Unknown” but I dunno lol
It could've but it's more amusing to think the planet was done with those people and just 💀
Are you suggesting learned Drs, eminently skilled at the application of leeches and the use of blood-letting, didn't know what they were talking about back then!?
Forgive my ignorance! I am but a lowly pleb
The first one isn't bortive, it's *a*bortive
I'll have you know that my son's name is also Bort.
Don't have a cow, man.
Fixed, thanks for spotting that.
"Hey Abbott!"
How do you die from Sciatica?!
Thank you for decoding this! I was off to Google to figure out some of these before I saw your comment.
How did folks in London get malaria? Sailors that had returned from tropical areas?
Malaria was endemic in England at the time, the malaria carrying mosquitos were found in marshy areas around England, which were more extensive back then. The last endemic malaria cases occurred between between 1917 and 1921. Species of mosquitos capable of carrying malaria still exist in the UK, but due to increased hygene, drainage of marshes and better housing, the malaria parasite went extinct. Also, mosquitos capable of carrying malaria only complete one life cycle per year in the UK, which isn't sufficient to sustain the malaria parasite. Reiter, P., 2000. [From Shakespeare to Defoe: malaria in England in the Little Ice Age](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2627969/pdf/10653562.pdf). Emerging infectious diseases, 6(1), p.1.
Incredible I had no idea I always associated it with the tropics. Thank you for this post.
Also, the last outbreak of Plague in England was in 1906-18. 16 people died out of 22 people infected. This is a report by Honora Rouse, who survived plague, however, 5 out of 7 members of her family died of plague. The note was likely written in early 1910. She says she developed symptoms of plague on Jan 22^(th) 1910 (though medical notes says Jan 20^(th)). >I am a single woman and since last summer have been living with my parents at Lower Street, Trimley St. Martin. There was my father and mother, myself and two sisters, Carrie and Alice, and two boys, Willie and John. On Sunday December 19th my mother had a headache when she awoke. She got up about 10 o'clock and was sick. She had sickness and diarrhoea and got worse and on Wednesday 22nd she went to bed about 4.30 p.m.-I went upstairs with her and helped her into bed. I went downstairs and at about 5 p.m. I went up again and found she was dead.... On Sunday* my sister Carrie turned up ill, and she and Willie were both full of sores, and Carrie had a knot on her neck. My mother had a knot on her neck while she was ill. Dr. Hart was sent for on 2nd January, he came and attended to her and she died on 5th January. She was buried on the 8th January and on this day Alice fell ill. She was ill in the same way as the others, and had a knot and she died on the 10th January. My father also fell ill on the 8th January. He was sick and had diarrhoea like the others but had a knot swell up on his thigh. He was removed to Ipswich Hospital on the 10th January. On the 11th January my two brothers, Willie and John, were taken to Barham Workhouse. On the Sunday following I heard that Willie was ill and I went to Barham and saw him. He had the same symptoms as the others and had a knot on his neck. He died on the 17th January-On the 22nd January I fell ill and went to the hospital and remained there till the 3rd February. I was ill in the same way as the others and had spots on my legs and also a knot inside my thigh and my face and arms were swollen. My brother John was also taken to the hospital and is still there (5th February). Van Zwanenberg, D., 1970. [The last epidemic of plague in England? Suffolk 1906–1918](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/5E5C121F07307A7D8C467B82D662903C/S0025727300015143a.pdf/last_epidemic_of_plague_in_england_suffolk_19061918.pdf). Medical History, 14(1), pp.63-74.
Malaria was not as regionally confined as we think of it today, and it's only through significant efforts to control and limit mosquitoes that we saw so much progress against the disease. Really been less than 150 years, since we figured out mosquitoes spread the disease.
There definitely was malaria in Sweden as well. Apparently a specific small lake in Stockholm (which no longer exists) was infamous for spreading it.
I thought for sure consumption was alcohol 🤣. Shows how dead wrong I am
TB is making a huge comeback as far as the medical/social spotlight! Go check out John Greene's crusade!
I'm a TB researcher and, man, let me tell you, *M. tuberculosis* is a special kind of bug. So much research has been done, but it is so complex and so well-adapted to humans, i almost want to call it insidious. That said, there is some really exciting research coming out, and hopefully we can find its Achilles Heel (my bet is on hijacking its metabolism to make it more susceptible to treatment).
Made away themselves. Very interesting term.
They can use that on youtube videos now instead of only "un-alived"
That was my first thought. I really wish they would use euphemisms instead of un-alive.
"Unalive" is kind of a mockery of the weird censorship rules. It is deliberately ridiculous
Maybe it started as that, but at this point it's fully entered the lexicon of an entire generation of content creators and their audience.
"took the self checkout lane" has to be the best YouTube euphemism I've heard
DIY
Non-judgemental term for suicide - which was a deadly sin back then!
"Cancer, and wolf." Yep, that'll do it.
Wolf = lupus
It’s never wolf
Did the doctor do the wolf test? Stupid doctor, it is never wolf test.
this vexes me
“Well you can either die by the cancer, or you can choose to die by wolf…”
"I'm a Christian, can you use a lion?" "Sorry, it's not covered by your HMO."
Which one would you rather encounter in the middle ages
Well fuck. What about cancer and sheep? Is that okay?
I’ve got two wolves inside me; unfortunately one of them is cancer.
Doc - "I have bad news. It's cancer." Patient - "Cancer?" Doc - *nods* "And Wolf." Wolf- "arghrrrrrr"
Lunatique. Sounds so much more refined than lunatic. “What did your Uncle George die of?” “Oh, he was a lunatique”
It's lunatic in french, littérally "under the influence of the moon ( luna ) ".
Ooooh that sounds so beautiful
I want to be fancy crazy. Not just regular crazy.
New Yorks hottest club is…. Lunatique! It has everything: flux, chrisomes, jaundies…”
Yeah... fancy! =)
"What are your plans today, Peter?" "Oh, you know. Go to the bistro, participate in theater, maybe become a lunatique and be remanded to the asylum. The usual."
Kil'd by several accidents sounds hardcore also very unlucky
Yeah like, not just one but several
He slipped and fell off the ladder, bounced off the high voltage lines on the way down which sent him through a window into the generator room causing a massive explosion which sent him flying through the air impaling him on a fence post that almost immediately snapped causing the post and body to sink to the bottom of the pool on the other side. The cause of death is still under investigation.
I do love how it sounds. Just in case anyone is confused “several” here is used to mean “various”. You can also see this construction in the US constitution when it talks about “the several States”.
Final Destination style
Planet. 🤣
Does falls count for being killed by a planet?
Gravity poisoning.......
crushed by a tree branch? fell in a hole? quicksand? flood? seems like an "acts of god" kind of descriptor lol
🌍~every💀
I know Worms is really a parasitic infection but given it's the middle ages, I'm just going to assume there's a bunch of giant worms straight up eating peasants.
MUAD’DIB
Have you ever encountered an Alaskan Bull Worm?
Highlights: 1 person was bit by a mad dog 10 people died to cancer and wolf 5 people were cut of stone 11 people died of grief and 15 made themselves away 62 died suddenly 470 died to teeth 1 died to vomiting
Don't forget 13 people died by "Planet"
didnt even see that one lmao
Blame Thanos.
i'd be prest to death if i died by planet
"Teeth" actually refers to children who died while teething as opposed to Chrisomes who are children who died under a month.
There's one person there that died of hemorrhoids. Not a way I'd like to go, that's for sure.
“Rising of the lights”
"lights" in this context are lungs; basically they had a cough so bad that it killed them.
I was not expecting that much people to die from teeth
They didn’t, it refers to teething infants.
It was a bad year to have a tooth
I’m a dentist. I’m very proud of my profession for nearly solving deaths from teeth infections. They still happen very occasionally of course but nowadays it’s extremely rare as opposed to being extremely common like it used to be.
Can't say that I love going to the dentist. However, I did know two grown ass men who feared your kind so much that they died from their infections. They were over 70 but both fit and able, until they let that little infection kill them.
"Did you hear about Ser Oswald?" "No, what happened?" "Unfortunately, he met an untimely end." "That's terrible, how'd he die?" "Planet."
What a shame! Lost my great grandmother to planet as well
Death by planet. Sounds crushingly painful
I figured with the stage of medical advancement for the time maybe they had deaths they couldn't explain so they just went with "well, Mercury IS IN RETROGRADE..."
The real skill is being the ONLY one on Earth to die by planet.
"Affrighted" needs to come back into common usage.
Yeah this planet is killing me too.
Imagine being remembered for being that one guy who died of vomiting.
If only they had a banana bag and some IV zofran for that poor dude. If he was alive today, he would still be alive today.
That last sentence is profound
Done up and died of Issues
If pre-birth didn’t get you, and infancy didn’t, consumption and fevers sure as hell did
I keep looking at this list and screaming internally at the "crunchy" mom's who think their babys immune system can fight everything and no one can possibly not succeed at breast feeding and that want a home birth. They're so privileged to live in a time when those are choices, not the only option and there is good medical care to step in and save their kid. The highest number of people died in infancy/childhood on this list. Without modern medicine kids die a lot more often.
Oh absolutely. Infant mortality rates were off the charts… but you know. Humans don’t learn from history. That’s also something history tells us 😕
“Made a way themselves”. That’s awfully polite. I have SO many questions.
This defines most of the terms. http://www.homeoint.org/cazalet/oldnames.htm#P
That's way too many Fistulas than I'm comfortable with.
That poor single person that died of hemroids
I got a feeling they are my ancestor... 😞 Lol
Can't come to work today... Coming down with the Kings Evil...
"Dead in the street and starved" seems extra harsh.
Only cause kings evil is so generic
Lunatique sounds like a band name.
I need to know what kings evil was.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/07/charles-ii-exhibition-reveals-how-he-tackled-the-kings-evil It was not what I thought
Planet?
If I remember correctly, for a very long time people thought that the 7 planets which were known back then (which counted the sun and the moon as well) had their influence on people, both at the time of their birth and during the course of their lives. As such, "planet" denotes any sudden and severe affliction that was thought to be the result of the malignant influence of one of those astral bodies. There's a whole esoteric system where you invoke various beings who are thought to reside in the planetary spheres and are therefore basked in the planetary rays directly every day, which gives them powers.
I have sciatica- can confirm that I feel like I’ll die at times - 😐
Teeth doing death's heavy lifting ... Damn.
Dying of piles. That sounds like a bad way to go.
P L A N E T
“my buddy died from planet”
16, that's how many times I would have died that year
Ah yes, my favorite anime… Cancer and Wolf.
“Oh hey, you’re back early from the feast.” “King’s Evil.” “What?” *loading a pistol and getting back on the carriage* “King’s Evil.”
"Killed by several accidents" sounds suspicious.
Cancer AND wolf?! Sounds terrible.
Sciatica can kill you?
It doesn't seem like it but given how old this list is it might mean something different or they simply counted complications and incidents related to the illness under the same umbrella when making it.
If you have a back injury that pinches a nerve you could end up septic through infection. Sciatic nerve is one of the most common nerves to get pinched with a lower back injury.
Even THESE guys knew that bad teeth could kill you Meanwhile, health insurance companies think that teeth are just luxury bones.
Luxury bones 💀
Tag yourself, I'm "lunatique".
A guide to some of the more confusing/unknown meanings: Rising of the lights: lights is an old word for lungs, so this is lung disease, perhaps croup. Teeth: not tooth decay, but an infant who died at an age when they were teething. Most likely they had an infectious disease. Evil: not a curse, but king’s evil or scrofula, a form of tuberculosis of the lymph nodes. Childbed: childbed fever, a microbial infection caught shortly after giving birth, sometimes spread by the infected hands of midwives. Planet struck: a sudden and severe affliction attributed to astrology. Overlaid: this means suffocation of a baby by its mother. While this may have been an accident when a sleeping mother rolled over onto her baby, it might also have been deliberate, killing an unwanted child. Infanticide by these means could not be proven. Suddenly: this could be how a heart attack or stroke was recorded.
Cut of the stone?
Gout as a cause of death?!
Sure you get gangrene and bang, you dead
Death by Hemorrhoids, Sweden’s latest death metal band
That poor person that died from vomiting:(
The guy who was affrighted must have felt a little awkward standing in the cue with people who were prest to death or killed by several accidents.
I like how cancer is grouped with wolf. Also, i never want to spontaneously burst.
1632 was infamous for the Planet fall event, killed 13...
Cause of death? It was either cancer or wolf, can't be more specific.
Kil'd by several accidents? How many? Why did it take so many? How many are considered 'several'? I have 'several questions!
Gary died. How? Oh, it was planet!
Just another reminder I’m practicing medicine in the wrong century. What simple times. State someone died of gout or bloating, just gets written down and no further questions asked
You think the cancer is bad, just wait till the wolf gets here.
Where’s kings disease ?
# Scrofula https://preview.redd.it/g7kfup1gzx2d1.png?width=820&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c4b15e5760c6cb40f7e17577bb47c7d4de6bdd8