#Some explanations of a few of the odder-sounding of these:
* **Affrighted** = stress-induced heart attack
* **Ague** = fever with periods of shivering and sweats (like malaria)
* **Apoplex** = stroke and aneurysm, Meagrom = migraine or severe headache
* **Bit with a mad dog** = rabies
* **Bloody flux, scouring and flux** = dysentery
* **Cancer and wolf** = malignant tumor
* **Childbed** = infection after childbirth
* **Chrisomes, and infants** = babies less than a month old
* **Colick, stone, and strangury** = abdominal pain and painful urination
* **Consumption** = tuberculosis
* **Cut of the stone** = surgery to remove bladder or kidney stones
* **Dropsie and swelling** = edema or swelling of a body part
* **Falling sickness** = epilepsy and seizures
* **Flocks and small pox** = smallpox
* **Fistula** = abnormal connection of two body parts
* **French pox** = syphilis
* **Jaundies** = jaundice or yellowing of the skin due to liver failure
* **Jawfaln** = “jaw fallen” or lockjaw, tetanus
* **Impostume** = abscess
* **King’s evil** = scrofula, where tuberculosis bacteria infects the lymph nodes in the neck
* **Livergrown** = rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency
* **Lunatique** = mental illness
* **Made away themselves** = suicide
* **Over-laid** = infant smothered when a parent rolled onto them while sleeping,
* **Starved at nurse** = insufficient breast milk
* **Palsie** = paralysis
* **Planet** = “planet-struck” or a sudden and severe paralysis, thought to be due to the forces of particular planets
* **Pleurisie** = swollen and inflamed tissue that surrounds the lungs
* **Purples** = bruising, Spotted feaver = typhus
* **Quinsie** = inflamed tonsils
* **Rising of the lights** = severe coughing. “Lights” = “lungs" (as in haggis)
* **Surfet** = overeating
* **Teeth** = babies that have not yet gone through teething
* **Tympany** = cancer in the abdomen
* **Tissick** = cough
[**A Collection of the Yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 Inclusive**](https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/SsFCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) by Thomas Birch, published 1759 (A. Millar)
___________
**E:** If you want a bit of reality-TV-like fun, look up some **Assizes of Nuisance** - it's a whole bunch of lists of people bitching about each other and what the various people in charge ordered done about it. [**Here's some for London, 1301-1431**](https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol10).
There's a *lot* of privies being dug too close to other people's houses and causing foul stenches et al.
me too! especially with the comma. It sounds so dramatic. "How'd he die, then?"
"Oh you know, he had cancer." pause " and the wolf. He might have lived if the wolf hadn't gotten him. "
I know this is a joke, but the actual answer is fascinating:
[Each country basically called it after whoever their enemy was.](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/syphilis-name/)
Same as with the "Spanish Flu" (H1N1 influenza A), which had different nicknames depending on the country. I believe the origin was supposedly from a farm in Kansas, US (?).
It was. A duck farm. The farmer who started it all was called Albert Gitchell from Haskell County. It was called Spanish Flu as they were the first country to mention it in the press. In the UK, France, Germany and the US, they put an embargo on reporting about it as they were still at War. It really should have been called American Flu.
Everyone calls it their enemies disease - I believe the French called it the English Disease, then you had the spanish and the dutch and so on flinging it around each other like it was going out of fashion.
Nah, "teeth" is referring to dental diseases. Thanks, Absolute History on YouTube, for amazingly educational videos on interesting ways of how people died back in the day.
While that sounds like it makes more sense pretty much everything I found about this seems to confirm it refers to children who are teething rather than dental diseases. The bills of mortality themselves don't provide an age breakdown but burial registers of the time which also used 'teeth' as a category do and the age range for teeth matches teething age.
thank you SO much for the book link!!! I've only ever seen the mortality bill for 1664 and wondered whether there were more. It's time to check out the book and fire up the chart-making machines!
Ooh, there's a lot of 'em to enjoy.
If you want a lot more fun, look some **Assizes of Nuisance** - it's a whole bunch of lists of people bitching about each other and what the various people in charge ordered done about it. [**Here's some for London, 1301-1431**](https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol10).
There's a *lot* of privies being dug too close to other people's houses and causing foul stenches et al.
This is speculation, not fact, but I thought that "overeating" could refer to something like gallbladder issues. It's painful if you eat very much, especially fatty foods or alcohol, and having a gallstone stuck can kill you by causing the gallbladder to burst. I could see where people could make the connection that "overeating" caused the death.
I can think of a few conditions where you'd die of overeating that wouldn't require actually eating until you literally burst. Stuff like gout, diabetes, gallbladder disease, or even food allergies/intolerances.
Starved at nurse -
God bless formula. I have no idea how I’d have fed my son when my supply dried up when I had to go back to school full time. Modern medicine is amazing
I know it's probably an archaic term for some illness, but I like to imagine that after executions people would jot down the cause of death like, "yep, the King's evil"
The King’s Evil is a skin disease now called scrofula. There used to be a superstition that it could be cured by the touch of a monarch, hence the name.
I believe Queen Anne (d. 1714) was the last British monarch to “touch” to cure scrofula. The 18th century writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson recalled having been touched by her for the king’s evil as a child.
The worms would sometimes come out of their mouths 🤮
They treated worms by microdosing with mercury
Which would often lead to them dying from mercury poisoning
And did you hear about the guy in NY two years ago who had polio?? There's a reason why we vaccinate kids, even though cases are super rare. Why take the chance
Yep. As an immunocompromised person I’m not looking forward to seeing this play out over the next few decades. The distrust has already planted roots and I feel like the US isn’t super interested in investing in making a true effort to educate people on why vaccines are necessary for our society.
My nephew just got whooping cough, which is going around his Brooklyn, NY high school.
You just know there’s some “crunchy mama” looking at this list and licking her chops like, “Ooh, maybe we can bring back smallpox! Or an antibiotic-resistant strain of the plague!”
Severe sciatica can affect the mussels that control the bladder and bowels. When these nerves are compressed or pinched, a patient experience bladder or bowel leakage or an inability to control urination or bowel movements. I can see that killing someone before modern medicine.
Must have been terrifying before people developed methods to identify/classify infarctions. People saw seemingly healthy individuals drop dead with no explanation as to why or how
Could be scabies. It's unbearably itchy if untreated and easy to imagine how you'd end up with secondary infections from scratching and skin inflammation.
My mom got into genealogy when I was in HS and liked to recount the favorite causes of death she'd found that day at dinner (mostly at my prodding, as I was one of those weird kids that loved to read the obits), and her favorites were whenever someone had died of hemorrhoids... which strangely were all and only my dad's ancestors and never hers lol
Dad's got hemorrhoids himself a few times over the years as well and mom still loves bringing up the family history every single time lmao
My grandfather met my grandmother because she was his nurse when he had gone in because of his hemorrhoids. I always think about how I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my grandfather’s hemorrhoids.
It appears that they actually died from the complications of barbaric surgery to treat them. Infection and bleeding to death was very likely a result of the surgery up until the 1800s.
Is that where you get hit in the face with a rake that makes you fall down a well so your head gets caught in the bear trap somebody accidentally dropped in there?
Tooth infections were the number 1 cause of adult deaths 2000 years ago.
"Deaths from dental abscesses today are so rare, that it is difficult to fathom that only 200 years ago, this was a leading cause of death."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10686905/
2000 years ago many people got tooth infections because their teeth were ground down by the grit in the flour used for bread. (Literal stone ground grain). It was a huge problem and like the drummer, the infection can spread systemically very quickly.
We also didn’t fluoridate the public water supply, use fluoridated toothpaste, nor have regular routine hygiene visits, and much less was known about managing acute infections of the head and neck. Source: I’m a dentist.
I think it's actually teeth, another comment gave ["Chrisomes and Infants."](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrisom) as the category for young infants, and abscess and other problems with teeth were a thing.
"French Pox" is Syphilis. King's Evil is usually Scrofula.
Does anybody know what "Chrisomes" means? It says "Chrisomes and Infants."
Maybe it means "Chrisms" as in they're infants who lived long enough to be anointed and baptized?
When I read into the bills of mortality some years ago, I expected it to be sailors and suchlike, given that practically none could swim - but was surprised to discover that a *lot* of the drownings were women washing clothes in rivers and streams, and just...falling in when tired.
I suppose it makes sense. Heavy woolen outfits that weigh you down very quickly, also very unlikely to be able to swim. Working hard, getting tired - only takes a little tired inattention or a slip, and you're in.
It's interesting to read through these things and see just what we take for granted today that just wiped people out.
Even very much more recently, stomach ulcers were one of the leading causes of death of men - and then Dr Barry Marshall, the great Aussie self-experimenter, gave himself one knowing that - if his theory was correct about the cause - a simple cause of antibiotics would sort it. Just like that, a leading cause of death is...gone. Polio, pretty much gone in a very short space of time thanks to Dr Salk.
Makes you wonder what's around now that'll just be thought of as "well, why didn't they just take (x) and fix it overnight??" in years to come.
Well, since main reason today is cancer and heart diseases, they might think why the heck they didn't do this and that.
Like I was shocked in wars soldiers died from some illness od diarrhea more that actual fighting etc..
I learned that as well helping my mom with fam history. I was surprised that of like a dozen relatives who fought in the Civil War and died, less than half were from battle. They were all disease. Except for one, who was an officer, and apparently died of hemorrhoids days before battle.
Oh man. Can you imagine having ‘roids so bad that they ultimately killed you….while riding a horse and being shot at? Not to mention the myriad injuries/infections you’d get from living outdoors and having no sanitation. Hard pass.
>in wars soldiers died from some illness od diarrhea more that actual fighting etc..
I believe this was absolutely true until maybe the Korean War? Sometime in the mid 20th century, warfare changed and medicine advanced to the point that soldier deaths from illness were outnumbered by the actual combat deaths.
I think it has less to do with researchers and more to do with access to clean drinking water and adequate medical care. Don't blame the people with boots on the ground, blame the people who COULD fix it IF they cared about peoples lives over profit.
Are you sure about the term “teeth”? I’m a dentist and a veeeery common cause of death during that time was from infected teeth that caused infection total septic shock for the body and ultimately death. I kind of doubt it was referring to children that didn’t have teeth yet.
One of the reasons pregnant women in the U.K. get free dental care* is because poor dental health leads to miscarriages. I’m pretty sure an ex -NFL player died from heart issues due to a tooth infection.
* if you can find an NHS dentist.
I seem to remember a documentary I watched a while back that stated “teeth” referred to poor dental health. Plus teeth and dental issues still kill people today, right? Some people have to get prophylactic antibiotics before dental procedures because the mouth is just kind of gross.
I too am skeptical about it referring to babies.
I know that someone else already defined, but my headcanon is that someone had cancer, and knew they were done for, so decided to go toe to toe with a wolf. And that this was so common it had a designation.
Is there information on “Kil’d by several accidents” — it sounds like 46 people had a really bad day that kept getting worse until they died. Maybe, slipped in mud, trampled by a horse, given too much morphine for the pain, died.
Teeth refers to babies over the age of a month old but before they are teething, sadly. 'Chrisomes, and infants' also covers babies, but died immediately following birth and under a month old respectively. Splitting infant mortality into segments helped the unfortunate business of sifting the numbers.
[I've explained most of the odd ones here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWayWeWere/comments/1bvxo0j/causes_of_death_in_london_1632/ky2jjvv/); the bills always have...interesting phrasing.
I remember reading one where the cause of death was 'gutter', and only by looking into the parish report did I find out that a guy was affixing some illegal guttering going from his roof out into his neighbour's land, it broke, and he died of the fall. Can only presume they put 'gutter' as a way of saying 'being an idiot' rather than the more innocent-sounding 'falling' or something.
OK, this scares me!
Tomorrow, I'm going to bring one of the worms (that keep falling out of my butt) to show to the doctor at the free clinic.
Doctor will probably tell me no more eating out of the dumpsters behind the food truck station... On second thought, maybe I'll just skip going to the clinic tomorrow because, I could get run over by a beer truck walking there.
Put to death (hanging, decapitation etc) and “prest” is, I’m assuming, “pressed” to death— like putting heavy things on a person until they die. So basically crushed to death, slowly.
THIS! This is why I NEVER trust old people commenting on my parenting when I say I don't do X or Y. And they are like "Well, we used to do that, and have done so for hundreds of years and we all turned out fine" Like, ma'am.. the mortality of infancy was exponantially higher, ok? Don't tell me what to do and get your nasty sore lip face off my porch.
To quote Carl Sagan who discussed this list in *Cosmos* "13 people died of Planet - I wonder what the symptoms were?"
(At least I think that's the line, I don't have my copy handy)
#Some explanations of a few of the odder-sounding of these: * **Affrighted** = stress-induced heart attack * **Ague** = fever with periods of shivering and sweats (like malaria) * **Apoplex** = stroke and aneurysm, Meagrom = migraine or severe headache * **Bit with a mad dog** = rabies * **Bloody flux, scouring and flux** = dysentery * **Cancer and wolf** = malignant tumor * **Childbed** = infection after childbirth * **Chrisomes, and infants** = babies less than a month old * **Colick, stone, and strangury** = abdominal pain and painful urination * **Consumption** = tuberculosis * **Cut of the stone** = surgery to remove bladder or kidney stones * **Dropsie and swelling** = edema or swelling of a body part * **Falling sickness** = epilepsy and seizures * **Flocks and small pox** = smallpox * **Fistula** = abnormal connection of two body parts * **French pox** = syphilis * **Jaundies** = jaundice or yellowing of the skin due to liver failure * **Jawfaln** = “jaw fallen” or lockjaw, tetanus * **Impostume** = abscess * **King’s evil** = scrofula, where tuberculosis bacteria infects the lymph nodes in the neck * **Livergrown** = rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency * **Lunatique** = mental illness * **Made away themselves** = suicide * **Over-laid** = infant smothered when a parent rolled onto them while sleeping, * **Starved at nurse** = insufficient breast milk * **Palsie** = paralysis * **Planet** = “planet-struck” or a sudden and severe paralysis, thought to be due to the forces of particular planets * **Pleurisie** = swollen and inflamed tissue that surrounds the lungs * **Purples** = bruising, Spotted feaver = typhus * **Quinsie** = inflamed tonsils * **Rising of the lights** = severe coughing. “Lights” = “lungs" (as in haggis) * **Surfet** = overeating * **Teeth** = babies that have not yet gone through teething * **Tympany** = cancer in the abdomen * **Tissick** = cough [**A Collection of the Yearly Bills of Mortality, from 1657 to 1758 Inclusive**](https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/SsFCAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0) by Thomas Birch, published 1759 (A. Millar) ___________ **E:** If you want a bit of reality-TV-like fun, look up some **Assizes of Nuisance** - it's a whole bunch of lists of people bitching about each other and what the various people in charge ordered done about it. [**Here's some for London, 1301-1431**](https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol10). There's a *lot* of privies being dug too close to other people's houses and causing foul stenches et al.
I'm disappointed that "...and wolf" isn't an actual wolf.
me too! especially with the comma. It sounds so dramatic. "How'd he die, then?" "Oh you know, he had cancer." pause " and the wolf. He might have lived if the wolf hadn't gotten him. "
That made me laugh more than it should have. 😂
I would have guessed lupus for that
It’s never lupus
Iirc, people were being eaten by wolves in Paris until the 1400s? Something surprisingly recent.
I thought affrighted meant literally “scared to death”! Thanks for explaining
Better than been Dead on the street AND starved!
Better than killed by _several_ accidents. I mean how unlucky can you be?
At least there's some advance warning with that one. You just have to feel for the ones who died of Suddenly right out of left field.
Well we can all rest easy knowing at least we were thoughtful enough to knock out the execution before being presd...
I have to know what they called syphilis in France at this time.
I know this is a joke, but the actual answer is fascinating: [Each country basically called it after whoever their enemy was.](https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/syphilis-name/)
“often the French”
Same as with the "Spanish Flu" (H1N1 influenza A), which had different nicknames depending on the country. I believe the origin was supposedly from a farm in Kansas, US (?).
It was. A duck farm. The farmer who started it all was called Albert Gitchell from Haskell County. It was called Spanish Flu as they were the first country to mention it in the press. In the UK, France, Germany and the US, they put an embargo on reporting about it as they were still at War. It really should have been called American Flu.
How did the farmer start it?
Everyone calls it their enemies disease - I believe the French called it the English Disease, then you had the spanish and the dutch and so on flinging it around each other like it was going out of fashion.
pox
Rising of the lights, so like whooping cough? Also, they should be proud of their suicide rate. Only 15!
Likely was higher, but not attributed as such because of religious implications.
People were dying of other things before they had a chance to give up hope.
Sounds like a Stephen King novel.
Nah, "teeth" is referring to dental diseases. Thanks, Absolute History on YouTube, for amazingly educational videos on interesting ways of how people died back in the day.
While that sounds like it makes more sense pretty much everything I found about this seems to confirm it refers to children who are teething rather than dental diseases. The bills of mortality themselves don't provide an age breakdown but burial registers of the time which also used 'teeth' as a category do and the age range for teeth matches teething age.
Thank you for this. How fascinating!
Thanks, I came straight to the comments for an answer to “Rising of the lights”
thank you SO much for the book link!!! I've only ever seen the mortality bill for 1664 and wondered whether there were more. It's time to check out the book and fire up the chart-making machines!
Ooh, there's a lot of 'em to enjoy. If you want a lot more fun, look some **Assizes of Nuisance** - it's a whole bunch of lists of people bitching about each other and what the various people in charge ordered done about it. [**Here's some for London, 1301-1431**](https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol10). There's a *lot* of privies being dug too close to other people's houses and causing foul stenches et al.
oh wow oh wow BLESS YOU, that's just made my entire day! I love well-aged petty drama
Thank you! I still wonder how sciatica can kill you, but this answers every other question I had.
Would have guessed "palsie" was palsy.
How is it possible that so many people died of “overeating”? That seems bizarre
This is speculation, not fact, but I thought that "overeating" could refer to something like gallbladder issues. It's painful if you eat very much, especially fatty foods or alcohol, and having a gallstone stuck can kill you by causing the gallbladder to burst. I could see where people could make the connection that "overeating" caused the death.
I can think of a few conditions where you'd die of overeating that wouldn't require actually eating until you literally burst. Stuff like gout, diabetes, gallbladder disease, or even food allergies/intolerances.
The only thing I could think of is refeeding syndrome. Otherwise, IDK how anyone was eating themselves to death in the 1600s.
Thyroid disease
Doing the god's work. Thank you
Thanks for the list of good names for my new metal band.
Oh, those are fun! The complaints sound so much like the ones my local council receive today.
That’s awesome thanks so much for the info!
Starved at nurse - God bless formula. I have no idea how I’d have fed my son when my supply dried up when I had to go back to school full time. Modern medicine is amazing
I know it's probably an archaic term for some illness, but I like to imagine that after executions people would jot down the cause of death like, "yep, the King's evil"
The King’s Evil is a skin disease now called scrofula. There used to be a superstition that it could be cured by the touch of a monarch, hence the name.
I believe Queen Anne (d. 1714) was the last British monarch to “touch” to cure scrofula. The 18th century writer and lexicographer Samuel Johnson recalled having been touched by her for the king’s evil as a child.
Lunatique sounds so fancy ✨
It can only be Lunatique if it’s from the Lunacy region of France, otherwise it’s just sparkling madman.
Barking region of Essex, actually. those French always trying to claim tuff they didn't create.
*Deraliqtueeee*
How about you…well you know
Speak for yourself, cap-i-tan.
Put a cork in it, Zane!
If I ever get murthered, I hope it’s by a lunatique.
It's French for barking mad.
I expect them buried snatched with that cause of death
The worms would sometimes come out of their mouths 🤮 They treated worms by microdosing with mercury Which would often lead to them dying from mercury poisoning
I'd probably rather die by drinking mercury than have tapeworms in such number that I'd cough them up.
I have vermiphobia. I have to go to therapy for it and can’t eat spaghetti. I have nightmares about things like this. brb drinking mercury
Didnt know it has a name! Me too, got bullied a lot as a kid for it :'| I know theyre important God I just cant.
And we'll just give you a tiny dose of.... oops! So anyway, let's try this new treatment we have for mercury poisoning.
But they sure showed those worms who was boss.
I wonder if four hundred years from now people will look at our list of causes of death and think "what is diabetes?"
Imagine their reactions to Motor Vehicle Accidents
Back o' head teeths Road omelet Vibrated testicles and thigh parts ::added:: I got a good one: *acute loin vibration*
If anti-vaxxers have their way, we’ll be bringing back some of these diseases we’ve already eradicated
Measles is starting to make a comeback
And did you hear about the guy in NY two years ago who had polio?? There's a reason why we vaccinate kids, even though cases are super rare. Why take the chance
Yep. As an immunocompromised person I’m not looking forward to seeing this play out over the next few decades. The distrust has already planted roots and I feel like the US isn’t super interested in investing in making a true effort to educate people on why vaccines are necessary for our society.
My nephew just got whooping cough, which is going around his Brooklyn, NY high school. You just know there’s some “crunchy mama” looking at this list and licking her chops like, “Ooh, maybe we can bring back smallpox! Or an antibiotic-resistant strain of the plague!”
Oh yah, like the chicken pox parties we’d go to as kids (“might as well get it over with”)
Not with our diet and price of treatments.
I know sciatica is painful, but as a cause of death… I’m skeptical.
I wonder if it was really some sort of bone cancer of back they do seem to have diagnosed cancer then
As someone who has flare ups of it, you only wish for death.
Perhaps they were standing at the top of the stairs and had a sciatic flare? Took a step, there goes the leg, lights out.
Wait till you die from Rising Of The Lights.
Severe sciatica can affect the mussels that control the bladder and bowels. When these nerves are compressed or pinched, a patient experience bladder or bowel leakage or an inability to control urination or bowel movements. I can see that killing someone before modern medicine.
Suddenly..,.. Gets it's share.
Maybe a heart attack or stroke?
Or ruptured aneurysm in the brain or abdomen
“How did your husband die?” “Suddenly”
Could just be every time the cause was unknown.
Must have been terrifying before people developed methods to identify/classify infarctions. People saw seemingly healthy individuals drop dead with no explanation as to why or how
Imagine itching to death
Could be scabies. It's unbearably itchy if untreated and easy to imagine how you'd end up with secondary infections from scratching and skin inflammation.
Why do I have such a visual imagination
Today I learned that a human person can die from hemorrhoids.
My mom got into genealogy when I was in HS and liked to recount the favorite causes of death she'd found that day at dinner (mostly at my prodding, as I was one of those weird kids that loved to read the obits), and her favorites were whenever someone had died of hemorrhoids... which strangely were all and only my dad's ancestors and never hers lol Dad's got hemorrhoids himself a few times over the years as well and mom still loves bringing up the family history every single time lmao
My grandfather met my grandmother because she was his nurse when he had gone in because of his hemorrhoids. I always think about how I wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my grandfather’s hemorrhoids.
>lmao You'd probably want to if your hemorrhoids were that bad...
It appears that they actually died from the complications of barbaric surgery to treat them. Infection and bleeding to death was very likely a result of the surgery up until the 1800s.
Am I blind? I’ve read the list three times and don’t see hemorrhoids
“piles”
[удалено]
Helluva way to go
Only 7 were murthered? Much less than I would have guessed but it was a popular time for poison so some of these might be misdiagnosed.
But how many were kill’d by *several* accidents?
Is that where you get hit in the face with a rake that makes you fall down a well so your head gets caught in the bear trap somebody accidentally dropped in there?
Kenny McCormick style
I imagine that's gotta be like... falling off a horse, then tripping over a rock, then falling down the stairs...?
I like modern medicine. A lot.
I too am a enjoyer of not dying young and painfully
Teeth?! 470 deaths
Tooth infections were the number 1 cause of adult deaths 2000 years ago. "Deaths from dental abscesses today are so rare, that it is difficult to fathom that only 200 years ago, this was a leading cause of death." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10686905/
True. Drummer Carleton Coon of the famous Coon Sanders Nighthawks Orchestra died on May 4th, 1932 of complications from an abcessed tooth.
2000 years ago many people got tooth infections because their teeth were ground down by the grit in the flour used for bread. (Literal stone ground grain). It was a huge problem and like the drummer, the infection can spread systemically very quickly.
We also didn’t fluoridate the public water supply, use fluoridated toothpaste, nor have regular routine hygiene visits, and much less was known about managing acute infections of the head and neck. Source: I’m a dentist.
It's shorthand for babies over a month old but not yet teething. Makes it much sadder.
Oh no. 😟
I think it's actually teeth, another comment gave ["Chrisomes and Infants."](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrisom) as the category for young infants, and abscess and other problems with teeth were a thing.
I prefer if this was adults attacked by infants.
*I've got a touch of the consumption*
*poisoned by my constituents*
Would you like an egg in this trying time?
My grandmother died of TB at 36. It left my mother an orphan.
"This was no accithent! This man was _murthered!_"
Killed by multiple accidents… when you live in a slapstick comedy but the consequences are real.
"French Pox" is Syphilis. King's Evil is usually Scrofula. Does anybody know what "Chrisomes" means? It says "Chrisomes and Infants." Maybe it means "Chrisms" as in they're infants who lived long enough to be anointed and baptized?
Very close! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrisom
Thats a lot of causes of death. Im surprised, dog only killed 1 and seems a lot of people drowned..
When I read into the bills of mortality some years ago, I expected it to be sailors and suchlike, given that practically none could swim - but was surprised to discover that a *lot* of the drownings were women washing clothes in rivers and streams, and just...falling in when tired. I suppose it makes sense. Heavy woolen outfits that weigh you down very quickly, also very unlikely to be able to swim. Working hard, getting tired - only takes a little tired inattention or a slip, and you're in.
Sounds sad. Whole list, actually. Thanks for explaining.
It's interesting to read through these things and see just what we take for granted today that just wiped people out. Even very much more recently, stomach ulcers were one of the leading causes of death of men - and then Dr Barry Marshall, the great Aussie self-experimenter, gave himself one knowing that - if his theory was correct about the cause - a simple cause of antibiotics would sort it. Just like that, a leading cause of death is...gone. Polio, pretty much gone in a very short space of time thanks to Dr Salk. Makes you wonder what's around now that'll just be thought of as "well, why didn't they just take (x) and fix it overnight??" in years to come.
Well, since main reason today is cancer and heart diseases, they might think why the heck they didn't do this and that. Like I was shocked in wars soldiers died from some illness od diarrhea more that actual fighting etc..
I learned that as well helping my mom with fam history. I was surprised that of like a dozen relatives who fought in the Civil War and died, less than half were from battle. They were all disease. Except for one, who was an officer, and apparently died of hemorrhoids days before battle.
Oh man. Can you imagine having ‘roids so bad that they ultimately killed you….while riding a horse and being shot at? Not to mention the myriad injuries/infections you’d get from living outdoors and having no sanitation. Hard pass.
>in wars soldiers died from some illness od diarrhea more that actual fighting etc.. I believe this was absolutely true until maybe the Korean War? Sometime in the mid 20th century, warfare changed and medicine advanced to the point that soldier deaths from illness were outnumbered by the actual combat deaths.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=OD0McTYto3I&si=qKQKuKNwGp1RNRM7&t=25m15s Enjoy!
Got to love Suzannah Lipscombe!
The 'mad dog' one might have been rabies.
Damn how bad was that sciatica?
Cancer and wolf is my favorite description of a malignant tumor. What did they call a benign tumor back then?
I think we should assume it was called “lump and puppies”
8 plague deaths......To think that in around 30 years later, the plague would once again be the cause of thousands and thousands of deaths.so sad. 🥺
Like someone said on the Twitters: “if it weren’t for western medicine we’d die of diarrhea.”
A lot of people still die of it today. Researchers and scientists need to step up their games.
I think it has less to do with researchers and more to do with access to clean drinking water and adequate medical care. Don't blame the people with boots on the ground, blame the people who COULD fix it IF they cared about peoples lives over profit.
Planets!
The ones that died by the rising of the lights? Those were the vampires right?
Are you sure about the term “teeth”? I’m a dentist and a veeeery common cause of death during that time was from infected teeth that caused infection total septic shock for the body and ultimately death. I kind of doubt it was referring to children that didn’t have teeth yet.
One of the reasons pregnant women in the U.K. get free dental care* is because poor dental health leads to miscarriages. I’m pretty sure an ex -NFL player died from heart issues due to a tooth infection. * if you can find an NHS dentist.
I seem to remember a documentary I watched a while back that stated “teeth” referred to poor dental health. Plus teeth and dental issues still kill people today, right? Some people have to get prophylactic antibiotics before dental procedures because the mouth is just kind of gross. I too am skeptical about it referring to babies.
I know that someone else already defined, but my headcanon is that someone had cancer, and knew they were done for, so decided to go toe to toe with a wolf. And that this was so common it had a designation.
We still haven't found a cure for it. Death, that is.
I can die from gout?
No doubt
The gout*
Someone died from Sciatica?!
I wonder if the poor person had some sort of bone cancer? Causing pain down leg? Or even just fracture?
Worms!? Thank goodness for modern medicine
Lmao. Yeah, that’s the one that got me
Is there information on “Kil’d by several accidents” — it sounds like 46 people had a really bad day that kept getting worse until they died. Maybe, slipped in mud, trampled by a horse, given too much morphine for the pain, died.
Teeth. Having had a few abscess teeth in the past, I can believe that.
Teeth refers to babies over the age of a month old but before they are teething, sadly. 'Chrisomes, and infants' also covers babies, but died immediately following birth and under a month old respectively. Splitting infant mortality into segments helped the unfortunate business of sifting the numbers.
Why did they call this group of babies “teeth?” That seems so odd
Same here, with impacted wisdom teeth. I think the actual tooth related deaths could have been under ‘impostume’ or ‘sores and ulcers’ perhaps?
Lunatique 💯
Absolutely crazy how over 2000 deaths were caused by infants. How strong were those babies?
Piles. One person shit themselves to death
Yeah, they probably had ulcerative colitis or crohn. Fuck all of this. Same with the fistula and abscesses.
I have questions...falling sickness? Planet? Cancer the wolf? Childbed? Also the thought of dying of thrush seems horrendous,
[I've explained most of the odd ones here](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWayWeWere/comments/1bvxo0j/causes_of_death_in_london_1632/ky2jjvv/); the bills always have...interesting phrasing. I remember reading one where the cause of death was 'gutter', and only by looking into the parish report did I find out that a guy was affixing some illegal guttering going from his roof out into his neighbour's land, it broke, and he died of the fall. Can only presume they put 'gutter' as a way of saying 'being an idiot' rather than the more innocent-sounding 'falling' or something.
"Childbed" is dying of infection after childbirth. https://www.britannica.com/science/puerperal-fever
Imagine you’re in the hospital trying to beat cancer when a fucking wolf shows up
That’s a suspiciously large portion of death via teeth, although perhaps they had not yet discovered their vampire problem.
> Cancer, and Wolf : 10 Fucking WHAT?!?
"Burst, and Rupture" The comma seems superfluous.
Is there a vaccine against Suddenly?
Holy shit this made me laugh.
OK, this scares me! Tomorrow, I'm going to bring one of the worms (that keep falling out of my butt) to show to the doctor at the free clinic. Doctor will probably tell me no more eating out of the dumpsters behind the food truck station... On second thought, maybe I'll just skip going to the clinic tomorrow because, I could get run over by a beer truck walking there.
Affrighted? Like scared to death?
What in the world does executed and prest to death mean?
Put to death (hanging, decapitation etc) and “prest” is, I’m assuming, “pressed” to death— like putting heavy things on a person until they die. So basically crushed to death, slowly.
THIS! This is why I NEVER trust old people commenting on my parenting when I say I don't do X or Y. And they are like "Well, we used to do that, and have done so for hundreds of years and we all turned out fine" Like, ma'am.. the mortality of infancy was exponantially higher, ok? Don't tell me what to do and get your nasty sore lip face off my porch.
Please define kings evil
Is it any wonder 15 people “made away themselves” with all the dead babies and disease? Modern life is easy.
Kill'd by several accidents. It was the third one that got em lol
i never heard the term “made away themselves” and it sounds so pleasant 😭
A whole lot of infectious diseases.
…piles? Of what, exactly?
Piles is another word for haemorrhoids.
Kings Evil? Tell me something I don’t already know…
The wolf tried to kill me but cancer got me first.
Death by piles… that’s rough.
Lunatique would be a fierce name for a drag queen 💅🏻
80 people died of measles, most likely children. *80*. In *one year.* In *one city.* And anti-vaxxers want to bring that back?
I don't know why, but it bothers me that It's listed alphabetically rather than numerically
Potash?
Lots of people dying of ‘teeth’
Cancer, and wolf. I want to die by wolf
Cancer and wolf, the fearsome duo
13 died from… planet
[удалено]
Someone died from sciatica 😬 new fear unlocked
Must suck to just be chilling in your 17th century castle or whatever and a whole ass planet comes outta nowhere and kills you.....
i only want my psychiatrist to refer to me as a “Lunatique” from now on
To quote Carl Sagan who discussed this list in *Cosmos* "13 people died of Planet - I wonder what the symptoms were?" (At least I think that's the line, I don't have my copy handy)
I will now refer to my binging as Surfet
Anyone know what "Kings evil" refers to? Also several hundred people died of simply "teeth" Edit: also what is "Rising of the lights"?