Disease

 

This page contains reflections upon specific diseases mentioned within the files as well as large-scale epidemics.

 

 

 

There were a variety of diseases present in these files that I had never heard of, or that were fatal in the early 1900s and are easily treatable now. None of my files had any large scale epidemics like smallpox, but there were many others. Some of the diseases that I have come across are:

 

Dropsy- swelling of soft tissue due to the accumulation of water in the body. Today, it is called edema as a result of congestive heart failure (related to heart disease.)

 

Apoplexy- Another word for a stroke (related to heart disease.)

 

Myocarditis- an inflammation of the heart muscle (related to heart disease.)

 

Spasms and Convulsions- could be a legitimate cause of death, but could be related to another cause of death. It is hard to determine the exact cause of death in these situations.

 

Croup- An infectious disease of the respiratory system; most commonly found in children.

 

Palsy- a disease of the neurological system. Today there are several different types of palsy.

 

Septicemia- a localized infection that travels through the bloodstream, resulting in a body-wide illness.

 

Tularemia- a disease of small animals like voles, mice, water rats, squirrels, rabbits, hares, and muskrats. It is also called rabbit fever or deer-fly fever. 

 

Summer Complaint- a popular term for any diarrheal disorder occurring in the summer, especially when produced by heat and indigestion.

 

Peritonitis- a serious infection characterized by swelling and tenderness in the lower abdominal region; this is typically the result of either a traumatic injury to the abdomen, a burst appendix, or from an attempted abortion.

 

Inanition- Exhaustion from lack of nourishment or vitality.

 

All of these diseases seem to be very general and may have been were used as causes of death because coroners probably did not know exactly what was wrong with these people when they died. The most common victims of these illnesses were young children, ranging from infants to ages 6 or 7. The elderly were also affected by these diseases; because of old age and weakened immune systems they could not effectively fight off infection.

 

 

 

1900-1903

 

A telling historical facet of living in an industrial city has been the emergence of deaths from epidemic. Coincidentally, I have only catalogued files from winters (from which I am including September through March), and while many people are reported dying from bronchial and pulmonary difficulties (some say “congested lungs” or “hemorrhaged from lungs”—obviously symptoms of the harshness of winter) contagious and infectious diseases are ultimately claiming quite a few lives. I particularly see evidence of this when the deceased are living in what we may assume are crowded and dirty conditions. For example, while I’ve come across only three cases of deaths from smallpox, all were contracted in the same workhouse. From February 1903 alone I have catalogued deaths from: Tuberculosis, meningitis, measles and whooping cough. Many of these seem to have a higher incidence in children.

 

There are several incidences of syphilis killing people during late 1901, a disease nowhere near as prevalent as it is today, Syphilis did kill a significant number of people in this time period before the first reliable test for syphilis was invented in 1906. Another type of disease that seemed to kill several people in 1901 was the Whooping cough, which seemed to affect the elderly specifically.

 

There was one instance of a 56-year-old woman dying from Bright's Disease in 1901 (190108_63). A quick check with Wikipedia told me that Bright's Disease is a historical classification of kidney diseases that would be described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis. The term is no longer in use. 

 

 

It is not seem evident that diseases like consumption (Tuberculosis) target the elderly, weak or children specifically. It seems there is a cultural and scientific assumption or belief that these epidemic diseases are the most potent for those with already compromised immune systems; I have yet to come across a death from consumption that was not a middle-age man or woman, however. In fact, most consumption deaths seem to happen to normal people in largely normal circumstances. These are usually working men and women, yes, but they are living in working-class circumstances typical of a turn-of-the century industrial city. There is occasionally an epidemic in jails and in workhouses, but for the most part consumption deaths seem to be quite commonplace.

 

Tuberculosis, or Consumption, was the source of many social issues in the United States, including Pittsburgh because of the creation of consumptive prisons and sanitariums across the countryside.  Sanitariums were establishments which took in patients with TB and tried cure the disease by giving them fresh air and quarantining them from the rest of the population to prevent widespread infection.  Pittsburgh was a unique case at this time because TB and "black lung," as well as other mine related lung infections, were mistaken and misdiagnosed for one another; a rash of incorrect treatments resulted from this.

 

 

1906

 

I know whopping cough has been around for awhile but so far in my files I did not see any cases diagnosed as such until recently. The case I came across was a 3-year-old; the child became ill with a horrendous cough and fever died a few days later.

 

It was not until the 1940s that a vaccine for whooping cough became available in the United States. Now the vaccine is mandatory for all children under the age of four.

 

 

1924

 

I like to joke that people in the early twentieth century were more fragile and vulnerable to death because they seem to die from things that are so routine for us today.  These circumstances seem tame by today's standards.  For example, many people will fall and cut themselves, eventually leading to death by septicemia.  I cannot count the number of times I have fallen, cut myself, and lived to tell about it.  In an very strange death in April of 1924, a person contracted septicemia from a cut inflicted FROM PICKING THEIR NOSE. 192404_271

 

MG 07 Sept 2007

 

 

 

1926

 

In a strange case the person contracted septicemia from a splinter which was found in the third finger.  Oddly enough the person did not die of septicemia, but in their weakened state contracted pneumonia and expired. 192612_95 

 

 

 

1927-1928

 

In one of the case reports from 1927 I found that a man had died from arthritis.  This is the only death I found from arthritis and I did not think that arthritis could kill people.  Degenerative arthritis can actually kill people and is responsible for 16,000 deaths a year today.  

 

CL 21 Sept 2007

 

 

 

1930

 

In the case files from 1927 and 1928 I found a lot of deaths due to myocarditis. After some research I found that myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscles. Myocarditis does not seem to have an age discrepancy because I found infants, teenagers, and senior citizens all with a cause of death due to an inflammation of the heart muscles. This is interesting to see the new terminology in medicine being used in the coroner case files.  

 

AS 07 Oct 2007

 

 

 

1931

 

A man died of a cerebral hemorrhage (ruptured blood vessel in brain) a common death among the elderly. This case file contained a very detailed autopsy report the first I have seen so far.  The report was five pages long from the Southside Hospital.  It contained the person's name, age, time of death, the current time, autopsy #, and the doctors performing the procedure.  A detailed description of the heart, lungs, liver, gall bladder, spleen, kidneys, pelvis, and the adrenal and pancreas was also given.  I have seen autopsy reports before but not as detailed as this one. 

 

CL 05 Oct 2007

 

 

 

1938

 

In 1938 this was a few deaths due to Tularemia. The case file stated a woman died when she contracted an infection of left hand when she was cold packing rabbits. Tularemia is caused by bacteria called francisella. It is also called rabbit fever or deer-fly fever. Tularemia is a disease of small animals like voles, mice, water rats, squirrels, rabbits, hares, and muskrats. There are several ways tularemia passes from animal to animal, and animal to human. A common way is by insects and common to rural areas. There are 6 types of tularemia. Symptoms depend on how and where the germ enters your body. It is possible to get pneumonia with all types of tularemia.

 

AS 24 Oct 2007

 

Source: http://www.healthtouch.com/

 

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1950

 

In January of 1950, a man died from Ludwig's Angina. This is a term I've heard rarely before and i know its a rare occurance in the medical world as well. MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopidia defines the disease as a bacterial infection of the floor of the  mouth. It could get bad enough to cut off breathing. It often follows a mouth injury or an infection of the roots of the teeth. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001047.htm

195002-024

 

AFS 12 June 2008