3w ago

Causes of Death in London (1623)

205 comments

I found a blog with a bunch of the definitions
https://www.neatorama.com/2022/03/09/Leading-Causes-of-Deaths-in-London-1632/
- Thanks. I have so many questions about some of these. Cut of the stone, king's evil, Planet, rising of the lights, teeth... I'm mostly curious what king's evil is in this context. Gonna go look Edit: per the link it's scrofula.
  
  Teeth might be dental infections. Those can get nasty if untreated.
- Thank you!

Cancer, and Wolf.
- “People called cancer the wolf, because it 'ate up' the person.” But this wasn't just a linguistic quirk. The idea was actually translated into practice. “Some doctors would even apply raw meat to a cancerous ulcer, so that the wolf could feast on that for a while instead of 'eating' the patient.
  Source
  
  I could see how people 400 years ago could think that makes sense.
- Classic comedy duo, well until cancer went through the divorce...
- Oof, Wolf's a rough way to go
  https://youtu.be/QlbjBSN49H8
  TW: leads to more questions than answers

Made away themselves.
Ah British dancing around the point terms.
- We’d still say “done away with themself”.
- "Unalive" is the current dance. Euphemism isn't new.
- Just trying to avoid the YouTube censors

Kill'd by several accidents
When the universe is out to get you, but you survive the first accident
- Rasputin syndrome
- Like this guy. The only thing that could kill him was himself apparently.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Sullivan
- Ye olde' Final Destination.
- Is 2 several? Or 3? At which point do you come under the several category

"My teeth are killing me" meant something pretty different back then.
- "Teeth" actually meant "a child who's still teething." As with "chrisomes and infants," so many little ones died that often they were categorized by age rather than a specific cause. Probably the only reason to specify "overlaid, and starved at nurse" would be to blame and punish the wet-nurse.

So aggravating to not be able to sort by columns

Planet ?!?
- Scary:
  "Dying of planet" was a term used in the 17th and 18th centuries to describe a sudden and severe illness or paralysis that was attributed to astrology and the influence of malevolent planets. People who died from "planet" exhibited symptoms similar to strokes, heart attacks, and aneurysms. At the time, people who picked up bodies for burial often knew little about the cause of death. Other causes of death listed in The Diseases, and Casualties this year being 1632 included "affrighted" and "made away themselves". -Via Overview.

Someone translated the antiquated diagnoses: https://www.reddit.com/r/london/comments/r0g9fs/causes_of_death_in_london_in_1632/
- Hey thanks for this, it was a very interesting read
  
  Until they got to the part about hearing the worms moving around inside you...

Cancer, and wolf
- Wolf is an old name for Lupus, which of course is Latin for wolf.
  
  It took me a will to figure out it was not a joke...
- And 10 at that!
  
  Goddamn wolves, targeting cancer patients!
- The term I grew up with for botfly larva was wolves. Cancer was often diagnosed when the tumors erupted through the skin. The crab.
  So, probably a bad death.
- The ultimate partnership

::: spoiler beware!

tf is King's Evil?
- Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis
  
  I'm gonna call it the other thing

"Killed by several accidents."
lol.
- Hah! Gonna take more'n ONE accident to kill me, you bastards!!!
- Kill'd
  
  Kil'd

Cause: Suddenly.
- aka heart attack.
  
  If was the covid vaccine and you know it!
- Heart attack (not listed as such)

I would choose wolves over cancer
I suspect it means ear infections, but I choose to believe there was a big kettledrum accident that year
- It meant tumor

Over-laid sounds like a good way to go.
- Death by snu-snu!
- I know right? Especially when it's so good you starve to death. And she's a nurse too
- Better than King's Evil.
  
  Don’t know why they felt the need to have it and executions separately

Chrisomes : died while under a month old.
- Not sure, but I'm guessing part of the reason to specify the difference between "infants" and "Chrisomes" (baptized babies) might be to say where they'd be buried/where their souls would go.
- "And in other news, the death figures were released today. Once again, the leading cause of death is: being a baby. Over the last year, 2,268 infants died naturally of babyness."
- Spawnkill

Only 7 murders? The population of London was apparently about 400,000 back then so that's less than half the murder rate of present-day New York City (which is considered a relatively safe city). I don't think that can be right...
1632 London: 7 / 400,000 = 17.5 murders per million people
2023 New York: 312 / 8,258,000 = 37.8 murders per million people
- a relatively safe city [...] 37.8 murders per million
  Ignoring that in 1632 it might've been easier for murder to go undetected, here are the numbers of present day London. It's about 13.1 mpm, even lower than in 1632, about a third of present day New York.
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/
  America is not really a shining example when it comes to those things...
  
  New York's murder rate (and the overall murder rate in the USA) is shaped by a history of race relations which is quite different from London's. A white person in New York is much less likely (and conversely a black or Hispanic person is much more likely) to be murdered than the overall murder rate for the city might lead someone to think.
  
  It's a lot harder to murder somebody when you actually have to stab them or beat their head in with something.
- present-day New York City (which is considered a relatively safe city).
  Relative to USA. It would easily be one of the most violent cities in Europe.
- It's for the greater good!
- I'm especially dumbfounded as I thought that before there was an important police force and a mature legal system, murders were far more frequent than after.
  At the same time, it's possible I'm imagining 1632 London to be more primitive than it really was.

oh, cool - RFKs suggested DSM just dropped!

You guys are all laughing about 'planet,' but I'll have you know my uncle died of a cerebral hemorrhage when Neptune hit him on the back of the head. And we all thought it was just a glancing blow, but two days later, he dropped dead right in the middle of the supermarket.
You won't laugh so hard when it happens to someone you care about.
- Imagine being proudly offed by Pluto and then they make it not a planet any more.
  
  And so they have to change it to "celestial body" in the obituary

Spelling "Lunatic" as "Lunatique" now. Shout out to the poor folks that just died in the street and starved. Surprised it's only 6.
- Most that would die in the street would have an underlying condition, like ague or bleeding or even old age, since most people that starve would try to do something about it.
  If you're sick you might not be able to. If you find a job or charity successfully you've averted the death. If you tried to steal and fail you'll get on the executed list, or if you got wounded but got away, you'll be on the bleeding list, or if you succeed then you dont die on the street.
  I imagine those six would have the "died of unknown causes" phrase attached to them in modern times.
  
  I didn't even think of that. Thank you for the info!

I saw this list on hidden killers of the Tudor home (even though this list is post-Tudor era). The specifically spoke about the 'teeth' part.
Basically what that mean was that a variety of tooth decay and oral issues pertaining to the teeth. This was an era that first saw a large consumption of sugar (which as you know LOVES to fuck with teeth) by wealthier people and coupled with a nonexistent oral hygiene practice and dentistry. Basically people's teeth would decay and cause gum disease or simply a shitload of pain that even the painful teeth pulling couldn't fully fix.
One thing that you must remember is that prior to widespread sugar availability most people's teeth were remarkably fine throughout life as people's diets didn't contain enough crap that will mess your teeth up. Of course this isn't to say that it was perfect. Braces would have been a good thing to have for many people and a simple toothbrush with half decent toothpaste would have been a very welcomed thing.
- RFK jr will do his damndest to ensure bad teeth becoming a leading cause of death. Right behind measles, flu, polio and other communicable diseases.
- This was an era that first saw a large consumption of sugar (which as you know LOVES to fuck with teeth)
  Hey, don't blame sugar! It doesn't do anything itself. It's the bacteria eating the sugar and shitting on your teeth that damage them.
  Yeah, it's bacteria shit on your teeth. Brush your teeth, kids.
  
  Or don't eat sugar
- Apparently teeth means children who haven’t gone through teething, according to contemporary resources
  
  So the documentary lied to me?
  
  Yeah, these days we’d say “childhood ailments”. Or “death by antivaxx” as a lot of those ailments have a childhood shot associated with them these days.
- People don't understand that dental disease can lead to heart attacks/life threatening conditions
  
  I learned that years ago. It was quite the eye opener.

Rising of the lights?
...found it
Rising of the lights was an illness or obstructive condition of the larynx, trachea or lungs, possibly croup. It was a common entry on bills of mortality in the 17th century.[1][2] Lights in this case referred to the lungs.[3]

“Suddenly” 😂
- Ded .- RIP
- I'm not half the man I used to be

Planet
wtf were they smoking in London?
- It happens.
  
  Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqIYmYBNYxE&t=1646s
- Just a wee collision with a planet after falling off a high ledge?
  Weird euphemism, but I'd buy it 🤷
  
  I like it. Way cooler than "died from a fall" and more concise on top of it.
- I'm guessing it was some kind of astrology thing. People used to blame deaths on planets and stars being in certain areas of the sky.

I never thought to combine deaths by cancer and by wolves to save space or because they’re similar enough. I can’t comprehend why they thought it was a good idea either.
- It wasn't cancer cancer, it was a big crab that lived in the Thames that hung out with a wolf.
- Maybe they mean lupus? I think wolfes were already extinct in the 1600s on the British isles.

That one guy that died of Sciatica 😣
- Am old, can sympathise.
  
  Hear hear.
- Imagine the guy unlucky enough to have died from cancer AND wolf.

You can read about the modern meanings of the words here:
https://mylittlebird.com/2021/03/public-health-stats-on-disease-in-1600s-london/
- Thanks. That’s helpful. And because I had to know:
  Among unfathomable “Diseases and Casualties,” Planet (or plannet) was “likely a shorthand for “planet-struck because] Many medical practitioners believed the planets influenced health and sanity.” The label applied to any sudden illness or death, such as a heart attack or aneurysm, according to “15 Historic Diseases that Competed with Bubonic Plague.”
- Kings evil?
  
  https://www.britannica.com/science/kings-evil
  king’s evil, scrofula (q.v.), or struma, a tuberculous swelling of the lymph glands, once popularly supposed to be curable by the touch of royalty.
- What's "consumption"?
  
  Tuberculosis, a bacterial infection of the lungs.

King's Evil sounds like they were executed to me, but I have no clue what it could actually mean.
- Scrofula.
  Anyone checking for a actual executions should look about 3/4 down the first column.
  
  Somehow glanced over that, thanks for telling me!

Dying of piles sounds awful. Like, it would have been nice to marathon Ye Olde Stranger Things or Squide Game without having your arse falling to pieces on your ~~deathbed~~ deathsofa.

'Planet' goes hard.

Someone vomitted to death. I'd probably rather the cancer and wolf combo.
- Very good chance to be actually cancer. A lot of cancers lead to extreme vomiting if untreated in their terminal phase.
  Or cholera,etc....yeah, these,too.
  
  I think a lot of these could be grouped into a handful of now well known terminal illnesses.
  But not the wolves.
  Could well have been the opening phases of using canines to early detect illnesses. Just a few understandable methodology kinks in the early days.

Planet.
- When the Earth itself is out to get you.

Olde	Modern	Count
Abortive, and Stillborn	Abortion and Stillbirth	445
Affrighted	Fear? Possibly a heart issue?	1
Ague	Malaria, or a disease involving fever and shivering	43
Apoplex, and Meagrom	Stroke and severe headache, migraine	17
Bit with a mad dog	Rabies	1
Bleeding	Blood loss	3
Bloody flux, scowring and flux	Dysentery and cholera	348
Bruised, Issues, sores and ulcers	Bruising, open sores, either as a symptom of something else (hemorrhagic fever) or because they got infected	28
Burnt, and Scalded	Same	5
Burst, and Rupture	Probably an externally visible rupture	9
Cancer and Wolf	Cancer and Lupus	10
Canker	Mouth sores, maybe from herpes? Probably not the underlying cause of death	1
Childbed	Death following complications from childbirth	171
Chrisomes, and Infants	Babies less than 1 month old and Infants	2268
Cold, and Cough	Same (but probably a symptom of something worse)	55
Colick, Stone, and Strangury	Gallstones, kidney stones, and other intestinal and urinary blockages	56
Consumption	Tuberculosis	1797
Convulsion	Seizure, possibly caused by epilepsy	241
Cut of the Stone	Died during surgery to remove kidney / gallstones	5
Dead in the street, and starved	Exposure, hypothermia, starvation	6
Dropsie, and Swelling	Edema, fluid retention, possibly caused by heart failure	267
Drowned	Same	34
Executed, and prest to death	Executed is obvious, "prest to death" is accidental death while being tortured (via pressing) to force a confession	18
Falling sickness	Epilepsy, perhaps "petit mal" seizures vs "grand mal" which went under Convulsion	7
Fever	Same, interesting that it's distinct from Ague	1108
Fistula	Same, horrific, distinct from childbed -- I guess the women lived a bit longer?	13
Flocks, and small Pox	Smallpox and other diseases causing pustules	531
French pox	Syphilis	12
Gangrene	Same	5
Gout	Gout, or inflammatory arthritis, not the underlying cause of death, but a clear symptom	4
Grief	Modern medicine would be more specific but...	11
Jaundies	Jaundice, liver disease	43
Jawfaln	Fallen jaw, lockjaw, tetanus	8
Impostume	Abcess, a symptom of an infection	74
Kil'd by several accidents	Trauma, I assume	46
King's Evil	Scrofula or Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis	38
Lethargie	Chronic fatigue, a symptom of something else	2
Livergrown	Swollen liver, possibly cirrhosis from drinking	87
Lunatique	Lunatic, mental illness -- curious about the actual cause of death though	5
Made away themselves	Suicide	15
Measles	Same	80
Murthered	Murdered	7
Over-laid and starved at nurse	A smothered baby, either accidentally or on purpose, starved from lack of milk	7
Palsie	Paralysis, Parkinson's, similar things	25
Piles	Hemorrhoids, not a cause of death, but a source of infections and an obvious symptom	1
Plague	same	8
Planet	Sudden death thought to be related to something astrological (planet alignment)	13
Pleurisie, and Spleen	Pleurisy (chest infection), apparently it can sometimes be caused by damage to the spleen?	36
Purples and spotted Feaver	Bruising and spotted fever (tick borne disease), distinct from bruising, listed earlier	38
Quinsie	Quinsy, Peritonsillar abscess, can cause many other things	7
Rising of the Lights	Fluid in the lungs, possibly caused by croup	98
Sciatica	Same, possibly caused by spinal disc herniation	1
Scurvey, and Itch	Ye Scurvy dogs! Ye been sailing with yer limes!	9
Suddenly	um...	62
Surfet	Surfeit, overeating, overdrinking, not fatal on its own, but perhaps blamed when it was the underlying reason	86
Swine Pox	Possibly a euphemism for "French Pox"?	6
Teeth	Probably children dying at an age when their permanent teeth were coming in. Similar to "Chrisomes" named for the cloth used when christening a child. Either that or serious tooth infections that led to complications.	470
Thrush, and Sore mouth	Thrush (Candidiasis) could make it hard to eat or drink, or lead to other infections	40
Tympany	Excess gas in the gastrointestinal tract making the belly like a drum, many potential underlying causes	13
Tissick	A wasting disease, often associated with a cough	34
Vomiting	Long term vomiting can cause dehydration, might also have been used for someone choking on vomit and dying from asphyxiation	1
Worms	Ugh.	27

Bit with a mad dog
This makes it seem like someone wielded the dog as a weapon
- Maybe it was a comedy bit

Died of teeth
Not really sure what I can add to that
- Toddlers and Kindergartners basically, still teething. Of whatever cause, too many and too difficult to tell.

Tag yourself. I’m “rising of the lights”
- Nice! I'm afflicted by the astrological influence of a planet
  
  Planet must mean "fell from s high place".
- "Cancer, and Wolf" is that a gangster duo or something?

This is just the extended discography of a gothic folk metal band?

How did someone die of sciatica?
- Could be pain in the sciatic area that was actually caused by something else, like septic kidneys or an internal tumor
- Just snapped right in half.
- I can speculate: Tumor or abscess pushing on the sciatic nerve? Horrible, unending back pain so they killed themselves? The cure being worse than the disease? I only know a bit about 17th century medicine, just that they lack a lot of medical technology and knowledge we take for granted. I mean they figured out hand washing in the 19th century.

I didn't know you could die of grief. Also what is 'made away themselves'?
- Probably suicide.
  
  Oh, that is exactly what it is lol. I just went and looked it up.
- Someone didn't watch the Star Wars prequels
  
  Correct.

How many of these are easily treatable today?
- Childbed for one, by washing hands before shoving them up in laboring women's vaginas.
  Pressing to death by not torturing people
  You can prevent a lot of Chrisomes and Teeth deaths (infants and toddlers and kindergartners) by routine vaccinations. Would prevent Jawfaln (tetanus) and Rising of the Lights (possibly whooping cough) as well.
  Then of course there's basic safety standards and antibiotics.
  
  All the poxes, consumption, measles, etc are all standard vaccinations in any decent country.

Grief
So death by heartbreak is possible
- You see it a lot in elderly couples. One dies right after the other.
  
  That happened with our dogs. One of our dogs was crazy about the other, like she was his everything. She passed away, and he died in the middle of the night a few days later. They were both elderly, but he had seemed fine when we went to bed, other than being sad about losing his best friend.
  
  Not just couples, Debbie Reynolds stepped out after Carrie Fisher died
- Probably a nice way of saying suicide.
  
  thats later on the list

"Over-laid" sounds like death by snu-snu.
- I volunteer!

What is King's Evil and why did so many die from it?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterial_cervical_lymphadenitis

Bacteria Virus Cancer Heart Condition Trauma Malnutrition Suicide Kidney Disease Heart Disease Liver Disease Parasite
What else am I missing?
Mostly, they died from a lack of medical knowledge.
- Teeth
  
  was thinking it's still a bacterial infection that gets you, but you might have a point
- Commas.
  
  ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

This will make a useful crib sheet for reading the causes of death in the US next year under Health Tsar RFK Jnr .

So many dead children. I count a full one third of all deaths being babies and toddlers.
- It's the reason why so many misleading statistics claim a much shorter lifespan in the past. If you survived childhood, and there wasn't a plague around, or a war, you had good chances of reaching 60.
  
  Life expectancy from birth is easily the most misleading statistic in the history of the social sciences because it is a measure of central tendency (aka an average, specifically, a median) of a property (age at death) that not only has no central tendency but actually has the opposite of a central tendency, with values concentrated at the low end (infant and child mortality) and the high end (old age deaths). In almost all societies ever measured, the life expectancy from birth age is usually the age at which a person is least likely to die.
  To add to its misleading nature: demographers usually use the value to express the life chances of the just-born cohort (up to age 5). Since they obviously can't wait 70 or 80 years until half of that cohort has actually died, they instead use curve-fitting to estimate life expectancy based on infant and child mortality actually experienced by the cohort. People often say that life expectancy from birth is misleading because it's heavily impacted by infant and child mortality, but this is not quite correct - it's actually entirely determined by infant and child mortality.
  
  If you survived childhood, and there wasn’t a plague around, or a war
  Lot of "ifs"

It's interesting how there's a hint of science here, but so much non-science.
Like, trying to categorize things is a bit scientific. Trying to distinguish between similar but different things is a bit scientific. At the same time, so many of these causes of death are symptoms not causes. And, there are too many cases where they didn't bother to try to find a cause, like the "Planet" cases or "Suddenly". Also, almost all of the deaths are in children / infants, but in those cases they don't try to figure out the cause of death, they just note the age.

Lots of great ideas here!

Kil'd by several accidents
Not sure what that's supposed to mean. Maybe some Final Destination shit where they die due to a series of random chance events?
- Maybe something like this but fatal?
- They got beaten up by an angry mob and there were mysteriously zero witnesses
- They had a lot of HP so it took several accidents in a row
- I think 'several' just means that the people counted weren't all killed in the same accident. No WorkSafe in those days so those accidents were probably shit like roofers falling off chapels and apprentice tanners mishandling chemicals.

Consumption I think is not in the sense of eating, but in the sense of the body eating itself ie wasting away.

"Cancer, and wolf"
- Best part

8 deaths from plague? Fake news, China plague.

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