Fascinating causes of death 1632

Note 7 people were ‘muthered ’ presumably murdered !

Well, it certainly puts a new perspective to people who say "My piles are killing me!" (as you do)

A female ancestor of mine died in the mid 1800s aged 98 and the cause of death was given as "By visitation of God". Old age I presume?

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

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

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

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

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

So ‘imposture’ was an internal abscess with puss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xxx

Doodledog

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

I was just about to raise that!

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

...as others have said!

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

Teeth - 470.
How horrid.

Doesnt surprise me.

That is absolutely fascinating, nanna8

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

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

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

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

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

Fascinating post nanna8

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