Cause of death query

[Simon]

I have been watching the post for the last couple of days waiting patiently (although not so patiently you would notice) for a death certificate going back to 1838. My ancestors father had died aged 37 about five months before he was born and I was looking forward with interest to discover how he had died, comparatively young even in those days.

You can imagine my disappointment when the certificate dropped onto the doormat and I read that his cause of death was "Decline". What on earth does the medical term "decline" mean ? This chap did not come from a poor family - his job before he died was "Clerk in the Excise Office".

Does anyone have any thoughts as to what the death certificate might be covering up by using the term "decline" as a description ? Has anyone else come across this ?

[Mary from Italy]

It usually relates to consumption (TB):

Archaic Medical Terms English List D

[Anne in Carlisle]

How disappointing for you! I think in those early days the listing of the causes of death wasn't always taken very seriously. Was it 'certified' by a doctor or did it say 'not certified'?

Decline at such a young age could have been from all manner of things, although TB is one which would immediately spring to mind.

These days there would be a list of at least three things which brought about the death even in the case of very old people and you think - well yes but really it was 'old age'.

Anne

[Little Nell]

Earlier death certs are not at all informative. Later ones seem to assume that unless there are at least 4 Latin terms as cause of death, its not a real death cert.

Disappointing I know. But that's the lottery of certs - sometimes they have nuggets of knowledge and clues to move your research and knowledge forwards and sometimes they don't really tell you anything.

[Olde Crone Holden]

I would go with TB, but it could have been anything really - undiagnosed cancer or possibly leukaemia.

As Nell says, early death certs are neither informative nor accurate, it was just somebody or other having a guess.

OC

[Helen Smith Too]

Some early certificates are very uninformative, but I have one from 1854 where a 79 year old woman died of 'disease of the Pylorus, certified'.
How did they know exactly, unless they performed a post mortem, and why bother for a 79 year old?

[Merry Monty Montgomery]

Some early certificates are very uninformative, but I have one from 1854 where a 79 year old woman died of 'disease of the Pylorus, certified'.
How did they know exactly, unless they performed a post mortem, and why bother for a 79 year old?

I think a doctor could diagnose that without post mortem and before death if he had a good patient history. Obviously his diagnosis might have been wrong though!!