[HN Gopher] Old disease names frequently found on death certific...
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Old disease names frequently found on death certificates
Author : js2
Score : 91 points
Date : 2021-05-11 04:46 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.usgennet.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.usgennet.org)
| thih9 wrote:
| How old? I'd love to have a reference point. Does anyone know
| whether these are from 1900s, 1800s, perhaps a different period,
| or mixed?
| tomgp wrote:
| > Rubeola - German measles
|
| In the UK at least this would now be
|
| German measles - Rubella
|
| (edited for line breaks)
| bregma wrote:
| Rubeola (measles) and Rubella (German measles) are two separate
| diseases caused by different pathogens.
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Surprised terms like "excited delerium" and hysteria don't make
| an appearance here. (But heat stroke does, which is a term I
| still hear regularly.)
| bregma wrote:
| "excited delerium" is not a medical term and has only been
| invented fairly recently by law enforcement authorities so
| don't expect it to appear on historical medical documents.
| js2 wrote:
| I was watching a TV show set during the depression and a doctor
| referred to a child who had grippe (pronounced "grip"). DDG took
| me to this list.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| "Gripe" is used to describe gastrointestinal illnesses
| affecting infants and small children.
|
| There is tonic/patent medicine called "gripe water" still used
| widely in the Commonwealth.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gripe_water
| roelschroeven wrote:
| "Griep" is still the Dutch word for influenza.
| oblio wrote:
| Same in Romanian (gripa). I imagine English is the outlier.
| figomore wrote:
| Gripe em Portuguese.
| spacechild1 wrote:
| And Grippe in German.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Y "gripe" en espanol.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Also "grip" in French, no?
| fra wrote:
| Gripe
| ggm wrote:
| Patrick OBrien made up a disease "Marthambles" which other
| authors have sometimes used (probably, taking him as a reliable
| source because he mines the letters and journals of real
| napoleonic era naval people and associated families)
| Gene_Parmesan wrote:
| Love those books. Not often I encounter someone else who's read
| them. Which is maybe a little unusual as it's not like they're
| unknown or rare. I guess Napoleon-era naval warfare is maybe a
| bit of a niche nowadays.
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| The movie (Master & Commander: The Far Side Of The World)
| made from the plots of several of the books was pretty good
| too.
| daveslash wrote:
| " _Bone shave - Sciatica_ "
|
| People die of Sciatica!?!? :-|
| ilamont wrote:
| On one 1800s death certificate, the cause of death was listed as
| "drank Paris Green accidentally."
|
| "What's Paris Green?" I asked an older family member.
|
| "Insecticide" was was the reply. It's also a pigment once used in
| fireworks. Extremely toxic.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_green
|
| What a terrible way to die.
| hinkley wrote:
| It was also used as a pigment. They made it for paint.
|
| I believe when I learned about Paris Green, in some
| documentary, it was mentioned that it was also briefly used for
| consumer goods. My association of Paris Green is a picture of a
| rich green notebook cover and the narrator saying that scholars
| have to wear gloves to read its contents. Name of the Rose vibe
| going on there, but the theory is that it was used to keep
| rodents from chewing on the books.
|
| Also if you're collecting old books, be careful of the green
| ones. It seems they started with Paris Green in the 1600's but
| continued using arsenic for green colors all the way into the
| 20th century: https://daily.jstor.org/some-books-can-kill/
| saalweachter wrote:
| It was also a really, really, bad idea to use your mouth to
| put a fine point on your paintbrushes throughout history.
| IncRnd wrote:
| Until I read the part about "insecticide" I thought that might
| have referred to drinking too much of the Green Fairy. After
| all, absinthe was banned there.
| permo-w wrote:
| that would have been my guess too
| gumby wrote:
| Note also that that could be a euphemism (or simply a cause of)
| suicide. As suicide was considered a sin (and also often
| considered scandalous by the surviving family) it was rarely
| mentioned on death certificates.
|
| Sort of like the precipitous decline of alcohol-related deaths
| during prohibition: clearly prohibition must have prevented (or
| delayed!) _some_ alcohol-related death, but out of respect for
| the family another cause of death was commonly used instead
| during that period.
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Note also that that could be a euphemism (or simply a cause
| of) suicide. As suicide was considered a sin (and also often
| considered scandalous by the surviving family) it was rarely
| mentioned on death certificates._
|
| Interestingly in modern times, at least in conservative
| areas, sometimes police/coroners will label an accidental
| self-hanging as suicide, as that's less embarrassing to the
| family than the reality.
| fridif wrote:
| Why not just list the cause of death as "accident", instead
| of "accidental self hanging" (embarrassing and needlessly
| specific), and also instead of "suicide" (since it wasnt
| their intent to kill themselves)
| autoexec wrote:
| "accident" doesn't tell you anything about what caused
| their death. They could have been hit by a car, stepped
| on by an elephant, electrocuted in the bathtub etc.
| They'd be better off ignoring if it were intentional or
| accidental and just listing what killed them like
| asphyxiation, heart failure, etc although that can have
| problems too since life insurance may or may not pay out
| without knowing if it was suicide
| vmception wrote:
| I would just assume it was a euphemism for suicide
| thechao wrote:
| Misadventure is my favorite euphemism.
| antihero wrote:
| That is extremely fucked up. If a family member accidently
| killed themselves trying to jerk it there'd at least be
| some sort of closure, if they supposedly killed themselves
| people would be running around in circles trying to figure
| out how they'd missed the signs, what impact they could
| have had on the person, etc.
| permo-w wrote:
| If I'd been forced to guess what Paris Green was, I would have
| gone with Absinthe
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >What a terrible way to die.
|
| This is the 1800s we're talking about, a time when people
| routinely died from infections and sepsis. Organ failure over a
| couple days is a walk in the park by comparison.
|
| Yeah they both look like crap from a comfy 21st century office
| chair in an air conditioned building but so does practically
| every other reality of 19th century life.
| meepmorp wrote:
| > Organ failure over a couple days is a walk in the park by
| comparison
|
| The symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning are vomiting and
| severe diarrhea, severe stomach pain, convulsions and muscle
| cramps. Your hair falls out, you vomit and piss blood, then
| after a few days, you fall into a coma and die.
|
| Doesn't sound markedly better than sepsis.
| mns wrote:
| My aunt and uncle both died of this, together with around 5 or
| 6 more people in the early 90s when one of their neighbors, an
| old lady, baked a cake for a birthday and mistakenly used Paris
| Green. She managed to poison all these people and, none
| survived, while she didn't manage to have any of the cake and
| lived. Wanted to see if I can find anything online about this,
| but there's not much saved from newspapers in Bucharest,
| Romania from that time.
| permo-w wrote:
| How do you mistakenly put insecticide in a cake?
| ljf wrote:
| Also used as a dye so maybe for food colouring?
| amelius wrote:
| Is anything with arsenic in it ever not toxic?
| carlmr wrote:
| Arsenobetaine:
| https://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/Arsenic_FactSheet.html
| t-0 wrote:
| A lot of these are still used, although some in slightly
| different contexts. A few of them could still be seen on death
| certificates. I have to wonder how the author decided on the
| list. Just looking at the first few letters:
|
| We still describe widespread oedema as anasarca. Apoplexy is
| still used, but only really in the context of pituitary apoplexy.
| Atrophy is of course still in use. Cerebritis is still used.
| Cholera, obviously. Chorea is still a description of abnormal
| movements (Huntington's Chorea, Sydenham's Chorea etc.) Colic
| still used to describe a certain kind of abdominal pain.
| Congestion is still a term. Coryza is still used to describe the
| collection of symptoms you get from an URTI. Cyanosis is still
| the correct term. Cystitis is still the term for bladder
| inflammation.
|
| Goes on and on...
| onychomys wrote:
| > I have to wonder how the author decided on the list.
|
| The same list is found here [0], and I assume it started at the
| university and then was borrowed by the genealogy site. I
| assume it's things the OSU history department has found in
| Civil War letters.
|
| [0]
| https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/cwsurgeon/cwsurgeon/med...
| Fomite wrote:
| We often also use "Breakbone Fever" to try to communicate just
| how painful a case of Dengue can be to those who haven't had
| it.
| kuroguro wrote:
| Some of the disease names look so mysterious they'd fit great as
| lore in an RPG.
| dred_prte_rbrts wrote:
| I never knew Writer's cramp could cause death? Seems rather
| extreme for something that prevents you from writing to cause
| death?
| mxmilkiib wrote:
| https://youtu.be/Uo0SfynGFig
|
| Diseases of Yore by MC Frontalot
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| We'll need another one of these in a few decades.
| Cerebrum1234 wrote:
| Here are some disease names that are still frequently found on
| death certificates such as malaria fever, yellow fever, dengue
| fever, bloody stools and many more
| xdennis wrote:
| I can see why some old names are preferred:
|
| > Cholera - Acute severe contagious diarrhea with intestinal
| lining sloughing
|
| Also:
|
| > French pox - Syphilis
|
| Fun fact about Syphilis, each nation called it after the nation
| they thought they got it from. The French call it the Italian
| disease, Italians call it French, Turks call it Christian,
| Russians call it Polish, Dutch call it Spanish, ...
| Armisael16 wrote:
| Cholera is still the preferred name for infection by Vibrio
| cholerae.
| Fomite wrote:
| This is one on the list that genuinely confuses me - Cholera
| is still very much in use as a medical and epidemiological
| term.
|
| There are several others. "Dengue" is something _we 're
| currently developing vaccines for_, not some Olde Tyme
| Plague.
| vmception wrote:
| I've travelled enough to hear urban legends slightly distorted
|
| Basically anywhere you go in the world there is a group of
| people that "has genes that dont metabolise alcohol" and this
| is presented as scientific fact with no study existing
| whatsoever, and masquaraded as the tolerant way of
| acknowledging problems integrating with that group of people
|
| "But I heard from" doesnt matter who you heard it from, show
| the study and show why it is a good study, or drop the idea
| completely (or fund the study)
|
| It can be the US, the UK, Central Europe, Asia, people repeat
| the same thing about another group of people in that area.
| Maybe its true in one of those places about one of those
| people. Or not.
| wahern wrote:
| It's a real thing:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction
|
| Ask anyone who possess two copies of the acetaldehyde
| dehydrogenase-deficient allele.[1] Or if you want objective
| data, look at incidence of esophageal cancer relative to
| alcohol consumption.
|
| It's just not as universal in various communities as
| sometimes assumed. And rather than make one more prone to
| alcoholism (i.e. as might be believed wrt Native Americans),
| the current scientific conjecture is that it makes one less
| susceptible because of the discomfort. Though, needless to
| say, indulging in such conjectures doesn't have a great track
| record, with or without the imprimatur of science. There are
| few if any facts that can't be twisted to serve some cultural
| prejudice.
|
| [1] 23andMe.com test for these polymorphisms. I presume
| similar genetic tests do, too, as the function is so well
| established.
| vmception wrote:
| Yes great overview and that allele frequency graph is the
| best! I didnt know how to articulate it and assumed someone
| would just deflect toward east asian.
| gfaure wrote:
| "Eel thing" for erisypelas sounded odd to me as the name for a
| skin condition. The only references I could find online are to
| copies of this list, so perhaps it was a transcription error.
| duxup wrote:
| Are these wrong to use? It seems like the page shows a 1:1
| relationship with other terms that you could easily find.
| Out_of_Characte wrote:
| Congestive chills might have been meaningful at one point but
| now I doubt anyone would recognise that that's the name for
| Malaria.
| Steve44 wrote:
| On a related note there are documents called "Bills of Mortality"
| showing weekly deaths during the plague in London during 1665 (
| the year before the Great Fire ) which list the causes. There
| some descriptions we'd recognise and other would be a surprise to
| die from these days, such as "Teeth" - 113 in the week of the
| linked image.
|
| Having had a quick search the best seems to be from the Wellcome
| Collection.
|
| https://wellcomecollection.org/images?query=Bills+of+Mortali...
|
| and specifically the "Diseases and casualties 15-22 Aug. 1665
| from London's dreadful visitation" page
|
| https://wellcomecollection.org/works/r4cx4qgx/items
| darrenf wrote:
| I find Bills of Mortality fascinating, and am somewhat
| disappointed that my favourite inscrutable-sounding cause "
| _Rising of the Lights_ "[0] didn't make it into the list
| posted.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_of_the_lights
| dylan604 wrote:
| After reading the wikipedia article, I still have no idea
| what this is. Lung cancer, pneumonia, some other lung
| disease, COVID-1619?
| flobosg wrote:
| According to one of the references[1]:
|
| > Many doctors believed that only vulgar people used the
| term to describe a tightening sensation in the chest,
| difficulty breathing and a cough.
|
| [1]: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/wellbeing/polio-
| soon-off...
| not2b wrote:
| "Teeth" might be some kind of infected abscess. In pre-
| antibiotic days you could easily die from that.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| I just ran into a series of 1904 NYC deaths attributed to "Slocom
| Disaster". Most of them were kids.
|
| I've entered hundreds of NYC deaths from that period but never
| ran into that one before.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| from https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/13/great-slocum-
| disaster-j... : The PS Slocum, built in 1891,
| was a paddle boat or sidewheel passenger ship. On June 15,
| 1904, the ship carried 1,358 passengers, plus crew.
| Chartered by the St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church for
| $350.00, the passengers came mostly from the German-American
| community of the Lower East Side. Most of the
| passengers were women and children. As the ship made its way up
| the East River, good times turned bad very quickly. There have
| been varying accounts of how the fire started, but it spread
| rapidly within a half hour of leaving dock around 9 a.m. The
| panic was horrific among the passengers as they faced death by
| drowning or being burned alive on the ship. ...
| Only 321 passengers survived from a total of 1,358 passengers.
| The final death count totaled 1,021. The next largest death
| toll in the United States would come decades later with 2,974
| dead from 9/11.
| tpoacher wrote:
| Half of those names aren't 'old'. They're just 'medical'.
| Normille wrote:
| Interesting list. When doing genealogy, I have sometimes wondered
| what terms on ancestors' death certificates equated to in modern
| parlance.
|
| One or two odd ones in that list though. Especially considering
| they've supposedly appeared as causes on a death certificate.
|
| For example: _Scrivener 's palsy - Writer's cramp_
|
| The mind boggles!
| tomgp wrote:
| Clearly you've never played "Trauma Centre" on the Nintendo DS
| for the entire duration of a LHR to LAX flight
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| A lot of occupations from early 1900's census are fairly weird
| and awesome.
| dev_tty01 wrote:
| I don't see physician incompetence in the list. Seems like a big
| oversight...
| retrac wrote:
| Not all so old. Many of those are diseases still very much with
| us and referred to by the same names. Tetanus and delerium
| tremens are still on some death certificates today. At least to
| me, lockjaw and the shakes are still colloquial terms for them,
| even. I wouldn't find it odd if someone used them. Though calling
| TB consumption would be a bit pretentious.
| dijit wrote:
| It was only 150 years ago that consumption was the preferred
| medical term.
|
| To put it into a little perspective: the Brooklyn bridge was
| built while this was still in general accepted use.
| echelon wrote:
| I think I heard my grandfather mention the term once or
| twice. "Died of consumption." I never knew what it was.
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