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Diseases: old names vs new

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  • 11-03-2018 7:29pm
    #1
    DamoRed
    Registered Users Posts: 394 ✭✭


    SRMF5 - I've also seen cause of death being 'decay - x months or years certified', and a good many in cases of children's deaths, which has made me wonder the same.

    Throughout my searches of death certificates, I've seen countless mentions of 'Malignant disease of...' which I've always taken to mean cancer. Now I've come across causes of death named specifically as cancer, the earliest case being 1905. When did cancer become to be commonly named as the cause of death as opposed to malignant disease?

    On the other hand, we've all heard of people who 'died of consumption' way back when. I mistakenly took it to be a common name for cancer. On the assumption that, without the recourse to treatment widely available today, it would have 'consumed' the patient, hence the name, However, as I've now found out, it was a name given to Tuberculosis.


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    #2
    srmf5
    Registered Users Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    DamoRed wrote: »
    SRMF5 - I've also seen cause of death being 'decay - x months or years certified', and a good many in cases of children's deaths, which has made me wonder the same.

    Throughout my searches of death certificates, I've seen countless mentions of 'Malignant disease of...' which I've always taken to mean cancer. Now I've come across causes of death named specifically as cancer, the earliest case being 1905. When did cancer become to be commonly named as the cause of death as opposed to malignant disease?

    On the other hand, we've all heard of people who 'died of consumption' way back when. I mistakenly took it to be a common name for cancer. On the assumption that, without the recourse to treatment widely available today, it would have 'consumed' the patient, hence the name, However, as I've now found out, it was a name given to Tuberculosis.

    Thank you for the reply. I had known that consumption was TB but your comment got me thinking. I think you might be right about decay. There's a website here that lists old medical terms: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/research/census-records/cause-of-death-list-of-medical-terms.pdf
    It has decay linked with TB. That seems to clear that up and matches with other family members having died from TB. It also said that the decay had lasted 2 years which fits with TB.

    There's another website with old medical terms: http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his480/notes/deth-dic.htm
    This links debility to weakness which is what I thought that it would be. The only thing to wonder about now is what caused the weakness since that's more a symptom than cause really.

    When I see malignancy in a death record, I would take it as being cancer. The term is still used today. Tumours are differentiated into malignant and benign tumours.


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    #3
    VirginiaB
    Registered Users Posts: 399 ✭✭VirginiaB


    I have only seen cancer twice as a cause of death before the last 50 years. The earliest was 1879. Thomas Costello, my great-grandfather's brother-in-law, in NYC but all born Ireland, has this on his death cert: "First, Cancer of glands of neck and [brain?], Second, exhaustion from vomiting. Not known if hereditary." The doctor also wrote "Very poor--attended free." The cert says he was buried in Calvary, NY's huge Catholic cemetery, but they have no record of him & the man spent an hour on the phone with me, searching every possibility. Very sad.

    As for TB, it was the great plague of the 19c. In addition to consumption, it was often called phthisis on death certs. Thomas Costello's teen-aged daughter died of phthisis and 'acute melancholia' in a charity hospital. She is at Calvary in a family grave with my great-great grandfather, Patrick Quinlan of Castletownroche, Co Cork.


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    #4
    srmf5
    Registered Users Posts: 311 ✭✭srmf5


    VirginiaB wrote: »
    I have only seen cancer twice as a cause of death before the last 50 years. The earliest was 1879. Thomas Costello, my great-grandfather's brother-in-law, in NYC but all born Ireland, has this on his death cert: "First, Cancer of glands of neck and [brain?], Second, exhaustion from vomiting. Not known if hereditary." The doctor also wrote "Very poor--attended free." The cert says he was buried in Calvary, NY's huge Catholic cemetery, but they have no record of him & the man spent an hour on the phone with me, searching every possibility. Very sad.

    As for TB, it was the great plague of the 19c. In addition to consumption, it was often called phthisis on death certs. Thomas Costello's teen-aged daughter died of phthisis and 'acute melancholia' in a charity hospital. She is at Calvary in a family grave with my great-great grandfather, Patrick Quinlan of Castletownroche, Co Cork.

    We're so lucky that there's a vaccine for TB now. My mum had thought that her grandfather was an only child. When I started doing family research, it turned out that he had 9 siblings. They all died of TB except for one that died as an infant. His mother died of TB also when he was only six. They had it hard back then.


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    #5
    VirginiaB
    Registered Users Posts: 399 ✭✭VirginiaB


    Sadly, TB is still a world-wide threat, mostly in developing nations. From the Center for Disease Control:

    Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s deadliest diseases:
    •One fourth of the world’s population is infected with TB.
    •In 2016, 10.4 million people around the world became sick with TB disease. There were 1.7 million TB-related deaths worldwide.


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    #6
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    To add to what VirginiaB has written on death/TB – for causes of death I’ve phthisis (TB) listed in my tree in 1904, cancer of the throat (Co.Cork 1909) and cancer of the tongue (Queens,NY 1912).

    TB is a highly infectious and airborne disease. It primarily was a disease of the poor, because their cramped living conditions helped incubate and spread the disease. It was quite common in Ireland up to the 1950’s – in the early part of that decade there were 7 – 10 thousand cases annually. Various sanatoria still exist e.g. Peamount in Dublin although now switched to other uses.

    TB is making a comeback in Ireland because incoming immigrants are not screened – last year there were about 300 cases – but treatment with modern drugs is responsive. FWIW on the leprosy mentioned in another thread – a friend who worked (in the WHO) in a leprosy mission in India told me that immunity to TB brings immunity to leprosy.


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    #7
    tabbey
    Registered Users Posts: 1,943 ✭✭✭tabbey


    srmf5 wrote: »
    I'm trying to make out the cause of death for the first entry here: https://civilrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/images/deaths_returns/deaths_1895/05937/4686687.pdf

    Also just a few quick questions. If a married 41 year old woman had her cause of death recorded as haemorrhage lasting 12 hours, could it be assumed that it may have been caused by a miscarriage?

    In a 6 year old with a cause of death being debility with the illness lasting 2 days, what could this be? In a 14 year old what would decay lasting 2 years be due to? It seems like they might have had an illness that they didn't have a name for back then like cancer or a virus or something.

    Your 41 year old woman dying of haemhorrage may have possibly miscarried, but you cannot assume anything.

    Debility could be any illness, the doctor was probably told that the child was unwell for two days. Without a post mortem examination, nobody knew.

    Decay just meant a progressive chronic illness, possibly TB or cancer or a neuro-degenerative condition, or could be anything not yet understood at the time.

    Cancer can be known by many names; space occupying lesion, tumour, malignant growth. Tumours can also be benign rather than malignant, but that should not feature in a cause of death.

    Tuberculosis only became known as such after the scientific discovery of the Tubercle Bacillus. Before that it was known as Consumption (English) or Phthisis (Greek). TB usually affects the lungs (Pulmonary TB) but can affect a wide range of organs,including brain, bone, uterus. Sometimes it can spread rapidly to a number of organs, this is known today as Miliary TB but was known as Galloping Consumption. When TB affected the brain, the cause of death was usually Tubercular Meningitis.

    Phthisis / Consumption / TB or cancer / tumour etc, is a matter of choice for the doctor/ registrar as cause of death. There is generally no other significance.


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    #8
    pinkypinky
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 6,622 Mod ✭✭✭✭pinkypinky


    Mod note: I've split this very interesting discussion out from the handwriting thread, which is better kept just for handwriting queries.

    In my professional work, I've looked at a huge number of death records. Cancer is recorded a lot in the second half of the 19th century. It wasn't unknown, it was just mostly discovered far too late, and treatments were largely ineffectual. Words like carcinoma and tumour are also used.

    Genealogy Forum Mod



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    #9
    DamoRed
    Registered Users Posts: 394 ✭✭DamoRed


    Thank you PinkyPinky. I was thinking about the subject beforehand, and was going to start a thread, but didn't get to it.


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    #10
    VirginiaB
    Registered Users Posts: 399 ✭✭VirginiaB


    Tuberculosis was not only a disease of the poor. It is very contagious and the list of rich and famous who suffered from it and/or died from it is very long.

    One of the interesting things I have found in my genealogical research is that consumption was often mentioned as the cause of death in 19c death notices in newspapers--that is, until the late 19c when the cause of TB was discovered and the fact that it was contagious. It vanished from death notices and even in family history, the cause was passed down as influenza or pneumonia. People avoided a house with a TB patient. There was such a case in my family in 1919 tho the true cause of death is on the young man's death cert which took years to find. The info was 'outed' by a newspaper opposed to my great-grandfather, a politician. The same paper had not long before 'outed' another son who 'had to get married'. These ancestors' roots were Co Meath and Co Antrim.


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    #11
    Waitsian
    Registered Users Posts: 1,708 ✭✭✭Waitsian


    A great-grandfather of mine has ' cancer of tongue' as cause of death on a Canadian state cert in 1890.


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    #12
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,832 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    VirginiaB wrote: »
    Sadly, TB is still a world-wide threat, mostly in developing nations. From the Center for Disease Control:

    Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s deadliest diseases:
    •One fourth of the world’s population is infected with TB.
    •In 2016, 10.4 million people around the world became sick with TB disease. There were 1.7 million TB-related deaths worldwide.

    The BCG vaccine, for whatever reason, is ineffective in some parts of the world. Unless there is another vaccine developed its going to take a huge amount of effort in sanitation to reduce numbers globally.


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    #13
    Vetch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 422 ✭✭Vetch


    VirginiaB wrote: »
    I have only seen cancer twice as a cause of death before the last 50 years. The earliest was 1879. Thomas Costello, my great-grandfather's brother-in-law, in NYC but all born Ireland, has this on his death cert: "First, Cancer of glands of neck and [brain?], Second, exhaustion from vomiting. Not known if hereditary." The doctor also wrote "Very poor--attended free." The cert says he was buried in Calvary, NY's huge Catholic cemetery, but they have no record of him & the man spent an hour on the phone with me, searching every possibility. Very sad.

    As for TB, it was the great plague of the 19c. In addition to consumption, it was often called phthisis on death certs. Thomas Costello's teen-aged daughter died of phthisis and 'acute melancholia' in a charity hospital. She is at Calvary in a family grave with my great-great grandfather, Patrick Quinlan of Castletownroche, Co Cork.

    The 'acute melancholia' here would now probably be referred to as depression or similar. I've never seen it listed on a death cert. Normally they stick with physical illnesses.


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    #14
    pedroeibar1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,108 ✭✭✭pedroeibar1


    Perhaps the exception proves the rule? Tipperary death cert from 1913 - cause of death - 'Exhaustion of melancholia - one year certified.' (She never was mentioned in family records, other than her DOB. I spent many hours looking for her in the US and Australia until free access to the GRO online and many more hours of research finally laid that particular person's trail to its end!


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    #15
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,832 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Depression doesn't lead to many deaths that would be given as the sole cause, I would think? Ireland to this day eumphemises suicide in public record, however; which is the common, unfortunate cause of death in that case.


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    #16
    spurious
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 27,130 CMod ✭✭✭✭spurious


    I have an 18 year old relative, where the death cert from the 30s states
    'Acute melancholic. Ex. 8 days. Cardiac failure certified'.
    She was in the asylum. I have always thought it terribly sad. Only 18.


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    #17
    VirginiaB
    Registered Users Posts: 399 ✭✭VirginiaB


    It's a kindness to the family, I think, and not limited to Ireland. There is still such a stigma attached to suicide.

    In the case of young Margaret Costello, I would guess that her life of poverty, tuberculosis, the prospect of an early death and the charity hospital likely combined to bring on her acute melancholia as the secondary cause of her death.


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    #18
    Vetch
    Closed Accounts Posts: 422 ✭✭Vetch


    spurious wrote: »
    I have an 18 year old relative, where the death cert from the 30s states
    'Acute melancholic. Ex. 8 days. Cardiac failure certified'.
    She was in the asylum. I have always thought it terribly sad. Only 18.

    I'm not sure if 'Ex.' here is an abbreviation of exhaustion as in Pedroeibar1's example or if it refers to the time period. Saying a person died from 'exhaustion of' a mental illness isn't the same as saying they died from the mental illness.

    As an example this table shows causes of death in Irish asylums in 1863. They're all physical illnesses http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/14628/page/381162


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    #19
    McLoughlin
    Registered Users Posts: 1,901 ✭✭✭McLoughlin


    I spent a few months transcribing historic medical records from an old Asylum (1870s till 1930s) into a searchable word document and "acute melancholia" was a common cause of death "organic brain disease" another

    Allot of medical terms regarding diseases especially on death forms I had to stop myself from looking up certain diseases as it was taking up time.

    I have to say the medical records I worked with were fascinating especially when i happened upon my great great grandfather being admitted with similar conditions that I was admitted to hospital 110 years later. Spoke to my own Doctor about this and he found it amazing the similarity thankfully the treatment is allot better these days.


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