We still describe widespread oedema as anasarca. Apoplexy is still used, but only really in the context of pituitary apoplexy. Atrophy is of course still in use. Cerebritis is still used. Cholera, obviously. Chorea is still a description of abnormal movements (Huntington's Chorea, Sydenham's Chorea etc.) Colic still used to describe a certain kind of abdominal pain. Congestion is still a term. Coryza is still used to describe the collection of symptoms you get from an URTI. Cyanosis is still the correct term. Cystitis is still the term for bladder inflammation.

Goes on and on...

The same list is found here [0], and I assume it started at the university and then was borrowed by the genealogy site. I assume it's things the OSU history department has found in Civil War letters.

[0] https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/cwsurgeon/cwsurgeon/med...

Having had a quick search the best seems to be from the Wellcome Collection.

https://wellcomecollection.org/images?query=Bills+of+Mortali...

and specifically the "Diseases and casualties 15-22 Aug. 1665 from London's dreadful visitation" page

https://wellcomecollection.org/works/r4cx4qgx/items

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_of_the_lights

> Many doctors believed that only vulgar people used the term to ­describe a tightening sensation in the chest, difficulty breathing and a cough.

[1]: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/wellbeing/polio-soon-off...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2523749/pdf/brm...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croup which is now tackled with vaccines and modern medicine.

> Cholera - Acute severe contagious diarrhea with intestinal lining sloughing

Also:

> French pox - Syphilis

Fun fact about Syphilis, each nation called it after the nation they thought they got it from. The French call it the Italian disease, Italians call it French, Turks call it Christian, Russians call it Polish, Dutch call it Spanish, ...

There are several others. "Dengue" is something we're currently developing vaccines for, not some Olde Tyme Plague.

Basically anywhere you go in the world there is a group of people that “has genes that dont metabolise alcohol” and this is presented as scientific fact with no study existing whatsoever, and masquaraded as the tolerant way of acknowledging problems integrating with that group of people

“But I heard from” doesnt matter who you heard it from, show the study and show why it is a good study, or drop the idea completely (or fund the study)

It can be the US, the UK, Central Europe, Asia, people repeat the same thing about another group of people in that area. Maybe its true in one of those places about one of those people. Or not.

Ask anyone who possess two copies of the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase-deficient allele.[1] Or if you want objective data, look at incidence of esophageal cancer relative to alcohol consumption.

It's just not as universal in various communities as sometimes assumed. And rather than make one more prone to alcoholism (i.e. as might be believed wrt Native Americans), the current scientific conjecture is that it makes one less susceptible because of the discomfort. Though, needless to say, indulging in such conjectures doesn't have a great track record, with or without the imprimatur of science. There are few if any facts that can't be twisted to serve some cultural prejudice.

[1] 23andMe.com test for these polymorphisms. I presume similar genetic tests do, too, as the function is so well established.

To put it into a little perspective: the Brooklyn bridge was built while this was still in general accepted use.

Peter Weir: Picnic at hanging rock, Gallipoli. Dead Poets. Trueman show. Amazing backlist of films.

"What's Paris Green?" I asked an older family member.

"Insecticide" was was the reply. It's also a pigment once used in fireworks. Extremely toxic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_green

What a terrible way to die.

Sort of like the precipitous decline of alcohol-related deaths during prohibition: clearly prohibition must have prevented (or delayed!) some alcohol-related death, but out of respect for the family another cause of death was commonly used instead during that period.

Interestingly in modern times, at least in conservative areas, sometimes police/coroners will label an accidental self-hanging as suicide, as that's less embarrassing to the family than the reality.

A friend of mine took his own life. The obituary said sudden accident. It's what his family will say in most situations. But they know.

It would be very twisted to keep relatives in the dark, though I'm sure someone has done so and thought it a kindness.

Suicide means the deceased did something to end their life, and had the intention of ending their life when they did it.

Misadventure means the deceased did a risky thing and died, but did not have the intention of dying when they did it.

Accident means the deceased was doing a normal activity and died.

Definitions of the manner of death can be nice and clear on paper, but are much harder to apply to the situations of a person's death, so there's lots of overlap between suicide and misadventure. It's often difficult to show intent, and so those deaths sometimes get called misadventure, or they have a narrative conclusion.

I've actually read an interview with a parent who lost a child that way who said it gave them comfort knowing that their child's death was simply an accident, rather than a mental illness problem that they could have missed.

Wish I could remember how to google it and get an actual cite. IIRC it was in the New Yorker or something.

I believe when I learned about Paris Green, in some documentary, it was mentioned that it was also briefly used for consumer goods. My association of Paris Green is a picture of a rich green notebook cover and the narrator saying that scholars have to wear gloves to read its contents. Name of the Rose vibe going on there, but the theory is that it was used to keep rodents from chewing on the books.

Also if you're collecting old books, be careful of the green ones. It seems they started with Paris Green in the 1600's but continued using arsenic for green colors all the way into the 20th century: https://daily.jstor.org/some-books-can-kill/

This is the 1800s we're talking about, a time when people routinely died from infections and sepsis. Organ failure over a couple days is a walk in the park by comparison.

Yeah they both look like crap from a comfy 21st century office chair in an air conditioned building but so does practically every other reality of 19th century life.

The symptoms of acute arsenic poisoning are vomiting and severe diarrhea, severe stomach pain, convulsions and muscle cramps. Your hair falls out, you vomit and piss blood, then after a few days, you fall into a coma and die.

Doesn't sound markedly better than sepsis.

There is tonic/patent medicine called "gripe water" still used widely in the Commonwealth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gripe_water

Diseases of Yore by MC Frontalot

One or two odd ones in that list though. Especially considering they've supposedly appeared as causes on a death certificate.

For example: Scrivener's palsy - Writer's cramp

The mind boggles!

I've entered hundreds of NYC deaths from that period but never ran into that one before.

    The PS Slocum, built in 1891, was a paddle boat or sidewheel passenger ship. On June 15, 1904, the ship carried 1,358 passengers, plus crew.

    Chartered by the St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church for $350.00, the passengers came mostly from the German-American community of the Lower East Side. 

    Most of the passengers were women and children. As the ship made its way up the East River, good times turned bad very quickly. There have been varying accounts of how the fire started, but it spread rapidly within a half hour of leaving dock around 9 a.m. The panic was horrific among the passengers as they faced death by drowning or being burned alive on the ship. 

    ... Only 321 passengers survived from a total of 1,358 passengers. The final death count totaled 1,021. The next largest death toll in the United States would come decades later with 2,974 dead from 9/11.

In the UK at least this would now be

German measles - Rubella

(edited for line breaks)

People die of Sciatica!?!? :-|