mortality in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1802

[franksolich]

I'm reading a short book about mortality rates, and came across this, for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in 1802.

Portsmouth at the time had circa 5600 people, and so 152 deaths in that single year is, uh, high.

Aphtha 2

I have no idea what "Aphtha" is, but as it claimed the lives of a 4-month-old and a 4-year-old, it must have been a childhood disease.

Apoplexy 5

The ages of death were 33, 43, 55, 63, and 66 years; I have no idea what the modern variation of "Apoplexy" is, but sincerely encourage all primitives with anger issues to be on guard against it.

Atrophy 6

The ages of death were 3 months, 40, 55, 55, 60, 69 years.

The table of mortality does not say what atrophied.

Cancer 3

The ages of death were 55, 60, 63 years, but remember 206 years ago, what was called "cancer" is not the same thing we call cancer today.

Cankerrash 8

I have no idea; ages of death were 7 months, 2, 2, 4, 5, 8, 16, 23 years.

Cholera of infants 13

All ages between 6 and 24 months, nearly all during the summer months.

Cholic billious 1

Age of death 42 years, and there's lots of primitives who should be careful about this.

Consumption 28

This was the leading cause of death; one assumes "tuberculosis" is its modern name.

Age of death from between 14 years up to 69 years, spanning all groups pretty much evenly.

Debauchery 2

Ages of death 38, 55 years.  This is another one of those things the primitives should watch out for, especially since this is a cause of death that has increased, not decreased, since 1802.

Dropsy 6

Ages at death 24, 50, 52, 69, 84, 89 years.

Dropsy in the brain 5

Those died at the ages of 3, 7, 7, 8, 13 years, although it does seem to me such should be a  gravely serious health risk for many primitives.

Dysentery 3

Ages at deceasement 2, 2, 3 years.

Epilepsy 3

Ages at succumbment 2, 2, 64 years; I'm not sure if this was the same thing as epilepsy is today.

Fever and Ague 1

Age at death 33 years.  This could have been just about anything, including an ingrown toenail.

Fever billious 3

Ages at death 27, 30, 74 years.

Fever billious malignant 10

All ages between 13 and 40 years at time of death.

Fever pulmonic 2

Passed on at 45, 65 years, both in January, a wintry month.

Gout 1

Aged 52 years; this ranks perhaps highly among the debauched primitives.

Gravel 1

Aged 41 years; I have no idea what "Gravel" is, or was.

Hooping [sic] cough 8

Ten weeks to one year, most in January-February.

Infantile complaints 2

Six days old in one instance, 4 weeks old in the other.

This however is perhaps the leading cause of ailments for the primitives, infantile complaints.

Measles 11

Ages at demise ranged from 9 months to 20 years, most in May and June.

Mortification 2

Seven months old, and 1 year old.  I have no idea what the modern name of this is.

Old age 4

Past the traditional threescore and ten; ages 76, 78, 90, and 94 years.

Palsy 4

This probably has a different name these days; ages at rigor mortis 50, 60, 64, 74 years.

Phrenitis 2

Ages 12, 30 years.

Premature birth 6

No ages given, probably infants.

Quinsy 1

One 3-year-old; I have no idea what this is.

Scald head 1

One 1-year-old; I have no idea what "scald head" means, as surely it didn't mean what it sounds like.

Small pox, natural 1

One, at 33 years of age. 

Small pox, innoculated 1

One, at 1 year of age.

Drowned 2

Sunk at the ages of 48 and 60 years, one in May and the other in December.

Fall 1

At the age of 55 years, fell.

Frozen 1

At the age of 82 years, froze in December.

Poisoned by opium 1

An infant, 4 months old.

Suicide 1

At the age of 32 years, in mid-winter.

[mamacags]

Aptha= sores in the mouth Apthous ulcers in the mouth are a chronic problem in some people. These can he caused by recurrent viruses(particularly herpes), different collagen vascular diseases, or usually unknown causes. It would be useful to culture an ulcer-if it is herpes treatment for herpes can be very effective. If no agent can be demonstrated, local treatment with benadryl or viscous xylocaine is helpful in treating the pain.

Apoplexy=bleeding


Atrophy is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body. Causes of atrophy include poor nourishment, poor circulation, loss of hormonal support, loss of nerve supply to the target organ, disuse or lack of exercise or disease intrinsic to the tissue itself. Hormonal and nerve inputs that maintain an organ or body part are referred to as trophic.

Cankerrash=rash caused by arachnids

gravel=kidney stones

mortification=some sort of sores that fill with puss and then the cells die.  Maybe a staph infection of some sort.

Quinsy=absess of the tonsils

Scald-Head, or Tinea capitis, a disease chiefly incident to dren, born of scrophulous parents : it is infectious only by contact, and appears to be seated in the roots of the hair, which protrude numerous small vesicles emitting an ichorous humour, and at length degenerating into ulcers that form a dry scab, or hard crust, sometimes half, or a whole inch in thickness, spreading gradually over the whole head.
Causes. - This malignant eruption often arises from uncleanli-ness, improper or coarse food ; but more frequently from the contaminated humours of wet-nurses.

[Lauri]

ok, I'll say it...

Frank, you scare me sometimes.. (cant find the right emoticon for this one  )

[Chris_]

It was all Bush's fault!!!!

[franksolich]

Apoplexy=bleeding

I always thought--I never looked it up, I just guessed its meaning in the context it was used--apoplexy was a sudden surge of blood, usually into the head, that causes (usually) the face to turn bright red, renders one paralytically speechless, blood vessels to burst, and a stroke.

Sort of like when the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive sees George Bush on television, and slams his fist through the screen; a serious problem with self-control and anger.

Esquire magazine used to have on its last page (maybe they still do; it's been years since I've read one) accounts of meetings between improbable people, and I always imagined such a meeting between the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive and franksolich would warrant a like story.

As mentioned before, franksolich looks normal, utterly normal.  But because of his deafness, his voice is as flat as the Platte River, as broad as the Platte River, and as slow-flowing as a glacier.  After the initial surprise, a person confident and competent and comfortable with himself has no problem with it.

But if a person has some sort of really serious neurosis or psychosis, or is generally weak and insecure, it provokes, after the initial surprise, anger and rage and Hate.

"Fundies," rednecks, blacks, the laid-back and mellow, little old ladies, truck-drivers, Hispanics, NASCAR fans, blue-collars, farmers, small-town folk, rustics, church-goers, Republicans, Asians, mothers, hunters and fishers, cowboys, military veterans and those still serving, steelworkers, automotive mechanics, golfers, assembly-line workers, &c., &c., &c. have no problem with franksolich's voice. 

These are people reasonably confident, competent, and comfortable being what they themselves are.

But when it comes to Democrats (minus the black ones), liberals (minus the black ones), and primitives, franksolich's voice seems to provoke some sort of real Ugliness, real Hate, from inside of them.

Sigmund Freud expended forests of trees and oceans of ink explaining why this is.

And franksolich's life-experiences have proven Sigmund Freud right.

Anyway, I have no doubt, no doubt at all, that in real life I could actually cause the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive a paralytic stroke, without meaning to.  I've known people in real life like the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive, and it happens every time.

If by chance I ever happen to be standing in line in a post office in northeastern Massachusetts, for example, and the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive is also there, the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive would pay no attention to franksolich; remember, franksolich looks utterly normal, nothing unusual.

However, if I opened my mouth simply to say "Good morning, how are you?" to the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive standing behind me, after the initial surprise at the tone of the voice, the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive would freeze into an apoplexic rage, he becoming speechless with Hate.

(It's not because the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive Hates franksolich; as Freud explained so very well, it's because the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive Hates, loathes, detests, himself.)

In fact, I honestly believe that simply my voice could cause the bird-smacking stoned red-faced primitive to collapse on the floor in paralyzed rage and fury, perhaps doing some serious damage to his cerebral-cells, which is why it's a good idea the two of us have never met in real life.

If that's not "apoplexy," I'd like to know what it is.

[franksolich]

Frank, you scare me sometimes.

Trust me, madam, there's no morbidity in it at all.

I've been an avid reader of the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report since sometime in the 1980s, but that hardly makes one odd.

There's that old saying about how ".....in the midst of life, we are in death....." which because of my own religion and life-experiences, I turned upside down into ".....in the midst of death, we are in life....."

Whatever that means, whatever that's worth.

By the time I was 25, I had already gone through what many people in their 50s and 60s go through; the deaths of parents and siblings.  I myself got done with that all a very long time ago.

And I am intensely curious about two things--what causes people to die these days, as compared with what caused people to die in other times, other places? and how fast are the hippies withering away?

Now, the weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report does not identify people as "hippies," but one can get a pretty good idea--vague, but a fairly good idea--of those recently deceased, who were hippies and those who had not been hippies.  Things such as occupation, education, socio-economic status, &c., &c., &c.

It's a pretty broad brush, but it's better than no brush at all.

Much is made about that circa a thousand veterans of the Second World War are dying every week, in their 80s and 90s, rapidly becoming extinct, but most are ignoring an even more-significant thing going on.

There is nothing unusual about people in their 80s and 90s dying; it happens, and there's not a damned thing anybody can do about it.

But what's also going on, and being ignored, is that there's been, since the 1980s, a significant upswing in the number of deaths of those of the hippie generation (say, roughly, circa 55-65 years of age), somewhat before their time.

And a great many of these premature deaths are caused by afflictions of the affluent, the too-easy, the too-comfortable, the lazy, the parasitical, the pharmaceusized.  And people who spent their adult lives "working" for "non"-profit and "activist" organizations, or on welfare.  And among people who think they can go ahead and do whatever they wish to do, with no consequences.....and if there are consequences, as there inevitably must be, well, science and medicine and technology can save them, keep them alive.

It's reasonable to assume that many of these deceased 10-15-20 years before the proverbial threescore-and-ten, dying of causes avoided by changing behavior and conduct (i.e., not from accidents or genetic problems), if in the proper age-range, with the proper sort of background, were.....hippies.

It's very inexact, this definition for who was a hippie, and who wasn't, but there are clues.

It appears to me that right now, right now in 2008, if we have not already crossed that ambiguous, cloudy, indistinct threshhold, we are very soon to cross it, where the premature deaths of hippies will begin to exceed the expected deaths of those from the Greatest Generation.

It should be no wonder that in a world fraught with many more-important problems, the primitives are singularly obsessed with "free medical care for all;" now on the downside of life, and a life somewhat truncated, the primitives are frantically, desperately--and futilely--grasping for anything, everything, to keep them alive.

There's no doubt in this mind that the last survivor of those who came of age during the hippie era, dying circa 2050-2070, will be a veteran of the war in Vietnam, not a hippie.

[Splashdown]

Scald-Head, or Tinea capitis, a disease chiefly incident to dren, born of scrophulous parents : it is infectious only by contact, and appears to be seated in the roots of the hair, which protrude numerous small vesicles emitting an ichorous humour, and at length degenerating into ulcers that form a dry scab, or hard crust, sometimes half, or a whole inch in thickness, spreading gradually over the whole head.
Causes. - This malignant eruption often arises from uncleanli-ness, improper or coarse food ; but more frequently from the contaminated humours of wet-nurses.

I could have gone the whole day without knowing this information! 

 

[NHSparky]

Actually Frank (since you're hitting only about 25 miles from home here), let's put this in perspective...

150 or so deaths in a town of nearly 6000 back in that day doesn't seem highly unusual, given infant mortality rates, communicable diseases, lack of immunizations, etc...

Basically, once you get to the age of 5 back then, you're pretty much set, barring accident or large-scale disaster.  And let's not also forget the Portsmouth area is also a fishing area--and that's a mite more dangerous than your basic office work.

I think you and a lot of the posters would appreciate the Strawberry Banke area, given the fact this is nearly the oldest town in the US (settled in 1623).  Even Boston wasn't settled until 1630.

Take that, Massholes.

[DixieBelle]

quinsy killed George Washington.

That's my trivia contribution