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  • Cause of death

    I have just received a death certificate for my grandmother's aunt Alice Crofts who died when she was 30 in 1912 and and don't really understand the causes put together, despite having googled the terms individually - can anyone help please?

    The causes were - Neuritis (not alcoholic) 8 months, Bulbar paralysis, Asphyxia.

    My grandmother told me that Alice's husband gave her venereal disease which caused her death - not something that would slip easily into family lore - and it does seem that Neuritis could be caused by a herpes infection. Would the causes be consistent with this?
    Asa

  • #2
    I understand the 'paralysis' may be due to syphilis.

    Anne

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    • #3
      Thank you, Anne - I imagine this was a very unpleasant end.
      Asa

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      • #4
        I did a quick Google and it does sound as if syphilis could be a cause, although many other (non STD) causes are listed. Sounds horrible.

        I think they tried to avoid putting the causes of the disease on the death certificate and concentrated on the actual immediate cause of the death. In other words it wasn't the syphilis (if in fact she had it) that caused the death it was the things listed on the certificate - however they came about.

        Anne
        Last edited by Anne in Carlisle; 28-03-09, 11:27.

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        • #5
          Syphilis is usually referred to as "general paralysis of the insane". I don't know which sounds worse.
          Uncle John - Passed away March 2020

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          • #6
            Thanks to both of you - think it's beginning to make sense. My grandmother seems to have been right about everything else so it's likely that syphilis was the cause. I half wish I hadn't got the cert now because the poor girl must have suffered very much.
            Asa

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            • #7
              Asa

              so often what we find out is very sad. I don't know how our ancestors managed without modern medicine, drugs, pain relief etc. They must have been much more stoic than we are.
              ~ with love from Little Nell~
              Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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              • #8
                Asa, according to my Nurses Dictionary which I bought back in 1964 when I was starting out my career,
                Neuritis is inflamation of a nerve with pain, tenderness and loss of function.

                Bulbar Paralysis, due to changes in the **Medulla Oblongata . It affects the muscles of the mouth, tongue and pharynx.

                **Medula Oblongata - that portion of the spinal cord which is contained inside the cranium. In it are the nerve centres which govern respiration and the action of the heart etc.

                So it looks like because of the parayisis she could no longer breath unaided and it must have been a dreadful death poor woman.
                Daphne

                Looking for Northey, Goodfellow, Jobes, Heal, Lilburn, Curry, Gay, Carpenter, Johns, Harris, Vigus from Cornwall, Somerset, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, USA, Australia.

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                • #9
                  I agree with UJ - syphilis was a notifiable disease and normally appears on a death cert as GPI - grand paralysis of the insane.

                  Possibly the doctor who issued the death cert was sympathetic to the family feelings and obscured the syphilis, although by doing so, he was breaking the law in a big way.

                  OC

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                  • #10
                    Forgot to say on my earlier post my great uncle died in 1924 and his death certificate just states Neuro Syphilis.
                    Daphne

                    Looking for Northey, Goodfellow, Jobes, Heal, Lilburn, Curry, Gay, Carpenter, Johns, Harris, Vigus from Cornwall, Somerset, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, USA, Australia.

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                    • #11
                      Thanks everyone, especially Daphne. I've been doing a fair bit of googling and I can't find what else this could all lead to. Cerebral syphilis looks possible. I did think it odd that there was no umbrella cause.

                      They had only married a year before she died. My great grandfather was devastated by his sister's death and never forgave her husband. Some of our finds really are quite depressing aren't they.
                      Last edited by Asa; 28-03-09, 17:58.
                      Asa

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                      • #12
                        Asa

                        If she died of syphilis a year after marriage, then she did not contract syphilis from her husband.

                        Syphilis is a long, slow burning disease and can take anything up to 40 years before it is fatal. It goes into remission for many years before it affects the spinal column and the brain.

                        I am not medically qualified, but a year before she died, she would be showing major signs of insanity and would have been in no fit state to marry.

                        Syphilis (GPI) was a major cause of death until very recently and most deaths took place in mental asylums.

                        I really don't think she had syphilis, but some other kind of illness resulting in paralysis - poliomyelitis for one, or some other kind of spinal infection.

                        OC

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                        • #13
                          That's what I was thinking, OC, when I saw she had only been married a year. When you look at causes of bulbar paralysis they are endless and diverse.

                          Perhaps the family assumed that she had a STD and unfairly blamed her husband.

                          Anne

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                          • #14
                            OC, I was reading a report on cerebral syphilis from around the time Alice died and this says the opposite - that symptoms usually develop within the first three years. Of course I have no idea when Alice lost her virginity and whether it was with her husband or anyone else:-) I don't suppose I shall ever know the details and of course there are many STDs and variations, none of them very pleasant.
                            Asa

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                            • #15
                              Hi Anne, that it wasn't a vd is quite possible but I really can't imagine my great grandmother and the family assuming it was one without being told that by someone. They were a very naive lot to say the least:-)
                              Asa

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                              • #16
                                As far as I remember, without digging out old textbooks (very old!), general paralysis of the insane (GPI) is/was a common condition of the tertiary, or end-stage, of syphilis. But there were other ways in which the person might be affected, depending on where the infection spread, and if it affected the brain, then which part of the brain.

                                So syphilis isn't synonymous with GPI, and GPI doesn't necessarily carry one off - the end may be speedier than a long-drawn-out decline into GPI.

                                Sorry I can't be more specific, but it's been a very busy and heavy day!

                                Bee.
                                Bee~~~fuddled.

                                Searching for BANKS, MILLER, MOULTON from Lancs and Cheshire; COX from Staffordshire and Birmingham;
                                COX, HALL, LAMBDEN, WYNN, from Hants and Berks; SYMES (my mystery g'father!) from anywhere near Bournemouth.

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                                • #17
                                  From my vast experience of once temping for a Professor of GU diseases, lol, the syphilis virus, once it has resolved the initial infected stage (only a couple of months) takes up residence in the spinal column and slowly moves upwards until it reaches the brain - takes many many years.

                                  Prof told me (after he caught me looking at a lurid textbook of syphilitic photos, lol) that untreated syphilis always kills eventually.

                                  It was official policy NEVER to put syphilis as a cause of death on a cert, out of feeling for surviving family (there was no cure at that time and it was wrongly believed by the medical profession and the general public that syphilis was a hereditary illness and that the whole family would eventually go insane).

                                  Of course, a few spiteful jobsworths DID put syphilis on the death cert, but that was more a moral declaration of the Doctor's feelings than anything else.

                                  The Registrar General only required "General Paralysis of the Insane" to appear on the cert and that was counted statistically as being syphilis. The government were VERY interested in how many cases of syphilis there were, but did not wish the information to be public - we were after all, the most moral nation in the world (har har) and we could not have the rest of the world gossiping about us.

                                  I have not heard of cerebral syphilis but will google it now!

                                  (Have to say, the book of photos almost sent me to the Nunnery, lol)

                                  OC

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                                  • #18
                                    OK, had a little read about cerebral syphilis - it does seem to be an old-fashioned term and maybe the distinction is no longer made these days.

                                    I noted that "meningitis" caused cerebral syphilis - this is rubbish of course, the two conditions are caused by entirely different organisms, although the effect on the brain may be the same - infection of the meninges.

                                    However, it also said that cerebral syphilis was hastened by alcoholism. I wonder if the "non alcoholic" bit on your death cert was to maintain the fact that she did NOT die of syphilis? (I still don't think she did, but of course, we will never know now)

                                    OC

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