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Modern Day Medicine.


syrup

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Just spotted this in a 1893 Newspaper, it shows how greatfull we should be for modern day medicine.

The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent (Sheffield, England), Tuesday, September 12, 1893.

Sheffield.JPG

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4 hours ago, syrup said:

Just spotted this in a 1893 Newspaper, it shows how greatfull we should be for modern day medicine.

Interesting, I hope more knowledgeable people than myself will expand on this post.

I often wonder whether diagnoses (that's probably the wrong plural) were accurate in those days, I have seen some strange ones on death certificates, my favourite being "visitation of God".

In my family, without checking my records, on my mothers side I think Great Gran had about  ten kids, only half surviving into adulthood and Gran had eight with similar results. On my fathers side it was almost the opposite, Gran and grandad both died of consumption, my father got put in a bad lads home and his sister in a workhouse even though neither had done anything wrong.

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One of the most common recorded deaths is in children is often called "Teething".  But most of these cases are now believed to be carbon monoxide poisoning, due to the coal fires. Most chimneys allowed this to come into the room where children slept. 

I suspect the "visitation of God" was used when there was no apparent cause of death.   

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Tuberculosis remained a common disease, until the introduction of milk pasteurisation, and it regularly came up as a cause of death, during my own researches into my own family history.

My own maternal grandmother, died, 1927, of Pulmonary Tuberculosis, aged 37 years.

Pulmonary diseases also came up as a regular cause of death, amongst those of my ancestors who worked in the grinding trades and mining industries.

My own paternal grandfather, died 1934, of Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Silicosis, aged, 50 years, which was probably a longer life than most scythe grinders.

My own paternal great grandfather, also, a scythe grinder, died 1912, of Bronchitis and of Heart Failure, again aged, 50 years.

My own paternal great, great, great grandfather, also, a scythe grinder, died 1837, of “decline” [a "catch all" phrase for an undiagnosed ailments], aged, 39 years.

I suppose also, that poor diagnosis, a lack of understanding of the causes of death, and few post-mortem examinations led to many fatalities being poorly described.

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The improving health of the population has much to do with improved working and living conditions, better sanitation, clean water, maternity and midwifery care and, of course, increasing knowledge of illness and its treatment...as well as a willingness to spend money on its prevention and treatment!

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That was created as a result of the willingness to spend( nationally) on health...and , arguably, the provision of potable water and efficient sanitation were the building blocks for the NHS.

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