by Pa Rock
Family Historian
I have been doing amateur work in the field of family research - genealogy - for forty years now, working primarily on discovering the ancestors of my children and grandchildren and learning their stories in the never-ending pageant of history. For five years during that time I even penned a newspaper genealogy column that was featured at one time or another in seventeen rural Ozarks' newspapers. In addition to all of that, I had several articles published in genealogical and historical magazines.
Recently I signed up for a trip that will take me to Salt Lake City in September for a week of genealogy research at the famed Mormon Library, one of the world's largest repositories of family tree information. In preparation for that trip, I have been hard at work getting my files in order and preparing a series of specific research goals to pursue while I am at the Mormon Library.
As a part of that push, I unearthed an obituary on a grand-uncle of mine who died more than a century ago. He was a brother of one of my great-grandmothers. At the time of my grand-uncle's death, his sister, my great-grandmother, has left her home in Missouri and traveled to rural Kansas to be at his bedside. She stayed on in Kansas until after the funeral, and I suspect, by the complete nature of the obituary, was instrumental in writing it. One of the items noted in the obituary was that my grand-uncle had died of "Bright's Disease." I made note of that because, although I had no idea what Bright's Disease was, if it turned out to be hereditary, I wanted to know more about it.
I put learning about Bright's Disease on my genealogy "to do" list, but before I could even get to it, some good information arrived in my email in-box that alleviated my concern. The website Newspapers.com, which is owned by Ancestry.com, sent out a copy of its blog, an informative publication called "The Fishwrap." In the latest issue was a posting entitled "Historic Causes of Death" which listed the historic names of several maladies and diseases. And one of the entries on that list was "Bright's Disease." The posting was by Trevor Hammond.
In doing family research, and especially in scouring death certificates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I routinely encountered certain causes of death that were rather common, yet which seemed to no longer be in use. Terms like "consumption," "apoplexy," and "dyspepsia" had become as rare and antiquated as "fainting couches" and "thunder pots." I was indebted to Mr. Hammond for his work in collecting and identifying these terms that were common in death notices and literature - and decided to help share the medical wisdom by preserving it in my own blog.
Here then is a bit of history.
Family Historian
I have been doing amateur work in the field of family research - genealogy - for forty years now, working primarily on discovering the ancestors of my children and grandchildren and learning their stories in the never-ending pageant of history. For five years during that time I even penned a newspaper genealogy column that was featured at one time or another in seventeen rural Ozarks' newspapers. In addition to all of that, I had several articles published in genealogical and historical magazines.
Recently I signed up for a trip that will take me to Salt Lake City in September for a week of genealogy research at the famed Mormon Library, one of the world's largest repositories of family tree information. In preparation for that trip, I have been hard at work getting my files in order and preparing a series of specific research goals to pursue while I am at the Mormon Library.
As a part of that push, I unearthed an obituary on a grand-uncle of mine who died more than a century ago. He was a brother of one of my great-grandmothers. At the time of my grand-uncle's death, his sister, my great-grandmother, has left her home in Missouri and traveled to rural Kansas to be at his bedside. She stayed on in Kansas until after the funeral, and I suspect, by the complete nature of the obituary, was instrumental in writing it. One of the items noted in the obituary was that my grand-uncle had died of "Bright's Disease." I made note of that because, although I had no idea what Bright's Disease was, if it turned out to be hereditary, I wanted to know more about it.
I put learning about Bright's Disease on my genealogy "to do" list, but before I could even get to it, some good information arrived in my email in-box that alleviated my concern. The website Newspapers.com, which is owned by Ancestry.com, sent out a copy of its blog, an informative publication called "The Fishwrap." In the latest issue was a posting entitled "Historic Causes of Death" which listed the historic names of several maladies and diseases. And one of the entries on that list was "Bright's Disease." The posting was by Trevor Hammond.
In doing family research, and especially in scouring death certificates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I routinely encountered certain causes of death that were rather common, yet which seemed to no longer be in use. Terms like "consumption," "apoplexy," and "dyspepsia" had become as rare and antiquated as "fainting couches" and "thunder pots." I was indebted to Mr. Hammond for his work in collecting and identifying these terms that were common in death notices and literature - and decided to help share the medical wisdom by preserving it in my own blog.
Here then is a bit of history.
- Ague: Malarial fever;
- Apoplexy: Unconsciousness resulting from a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke;
- Brain Fever: Meningitis;
- Bright's Disease: Kidney Failure;
- Childbed: Fever due to an infection after childbirth;
- Consumption: Tuberculosis;
- Canine Madness: Rabies caused by the bite of an animal; (I remember it being referred to as "hydrophobia" or "hydrophobic.")
- Chin Cough: Whooping cough;
- Diphtheria: Contagious disease of the throat;
- Dyspepsia: Indigestion and heartburn;
- Dropsy: Edema caused by kidney or heart disease;
- Falling Sickness: Epilepsy;
- Inanition: Starvation;
- Lockjaw: Tetanus disease that affects muscles in the neck and jaw;
- Milk Leg: Painful swelling after giving birth caused by thrombophlebitis in the femoral vein;
- Mania: Dementia;
- Mania-a-potu: A mental disorder caused by alcoholism;
- Quinsy: Tonsilitis;
- Ship Fever: Typhus; and,
- Spotted Fever: Meningitis or typhus.
There it is, something to keep close-at-hand for the next time you are enjoying Jane Austen or trying to make it up Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain - or digging your way through a stack of old death notices. Happy reading!
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