When I was looking for the Arrowsmiths, I found an interesting document in the records of All Saints Parish in Wigan, Lancashire. It not only has all the births, marriages and deaths, but also the cause and age at death. I looked at 100 consecutive deaths starting in 1813 and made a list. The average age at death was 18.7 years! Current life expectancy ranges from 45 years in parts of West Africa to 83 years in parts of Europe and Japan. The average age at death was so low in the early 1800s because most of the deaths occurred in children.
The oldest individuals, 60-94 yrs, 13% of deaths, generally were considered to have died from either “decay” or “weakness.” Despite the graphic images these terms bring to mind, it’s hard to guess what these diagnoses actually meant. There were very few deaths between ages 21-59 yr old, only 18% of the total. Three of these were due to “childbed,” i.e. death related to childbirth [typically caused by bleeding or infection].
The rest of the deaths (69%) were children. The actual number of infant deaths was higher, but newborns who died without benefit of baptism by clergy were not included in the church records. It is clear newborn deaths were not there because the vast majority of infant deaths occur during the first three days and the youngest child listed had died at one week. The common causes of death were chincough [the old name for whooping cough], measles, fits [seizures presumably primarily related to bacterial meningitis or to epilepsy], and fever. It’s easy to see why we expect to live to 80 years now. Whooping cough, the major causes of meningitis [Hemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae], polio, rubella-related heart disease, measles, etc have been nearly eliminated by vaccination, and many of the poorly defined “fever” and “fit” deaths now are prevented by antibiotics.
It’s interesting that some of the illnesses are so distinctive that the diagnosis in 1815 is the same diagnosis that would be made today. And therein lies tomorrow’s tale …with a personal twist.
Cleary Family History 