Have you ever wondered about odd causes of death listed in your genealogy research such as "catarrh" or "flux" or even, "dropsy?"
Me too! Especially now that "cold and flu season" is upon us, as evidenced by all the TV ads. My husband's 3rd great-grandmother died in 1860 of "flux," and I always assumed that was a shorthand for influenza, but I have since learned that this was a form of dysentery!
I'll put links to a couple of sites with old/archaic disease definitions at the bottom of the article. It often makes for amusing reading.
Births and deaths were not uniformly recorded by all the states until the 1900's. But the Census Bureau tracked causes of death between June 1849 and May 1850, etc., until May 1880. All kinds of information is included to help you with your history keeping. Be sure to check the "Mortality Schedule" in Ancestry ($) or at FamilySearch (FREE).
The change in the American way of life from country to city living from the 1800's to the 1900's resulted in overcrowded cities with poor water supplies and sanitation. There were repeated outbreaks of TB, cholera, influenza, yellow fever, and malaria.
In 1900, the three leading causes of death were pneumonia, TB, and diarrhea/enteritis with diphtheria that caused 1/3 of all deaths according to the CDC, and 40% of those were all children under 5!
The Federal and State Governments started sanitation and purification practices for food and water, and penicillin (discovered in 1928) came into wide use in the 1940's, at first to treat wounded service members.
From the CDC, "Strategic vaccination campaigns have virtually eliminated diseases that previously were common in the United States, including diphtheria, tetanus, poliomyelitis, smallpox, measles, mumps, rubella, and Haemophilus influenzae Type B Meningitis...the introduction of the Salk poliovirus vaccine led to federal funding of state and local childhood vaccination programs. In 1962, a federally coordinated vaccination program was established through the passage of the Vaccination Assistance Act--landmark legislation that has been renewed continuously and now supports the purchase and administration of a full range of childhood vaccines."
The New England Journal of Medicine released a report about leading causes of death of children and adolescents in the year 2016. The most prevalent? Automobile crashes. Not infectious diseases. Could they have imagined that back in the 1900?
In children 1-4, the leading cause of death was drowning in swimming pools. Among adolescents (10-19), we find motor vehicle accidents, firearms (intentional aka homicide 1733 out of 2835), and suffocation suicides (1103 out of 1128). A terribly sad state of affairs, and a really big change from 1900.
Not to mention from 1860 when you could die from catarrh or flux!
My, how times have changed over 124 years! Absolutely extraordinary advances in science and technology reducing deaths due to illnesses, including DNA and gene splicing. Cures for cancers may be coming soon! I'll be getting my annual jabs of a flu vaccine and a COVID vaccine both made with super smart Messenger RNA extracted from DNA proteins.
Wishing you all good health and good luck with your family history research. If you have questions, shoot me an email, I'd be glad to help!
Regards,
Leslie Ryan
“World peace must develop from inner peace. Peace is not just mere absence of violence. Peace is, I think, the manifestation of human compassion.” ― Dalai Lama XIV
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Further reading:
Old causes of death:
Causes of death from CDC (dated 1999)
New England Journal of Medicine article regarding death of adolescents and children 2018
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