On the Web sites page, I discussed the informative site on the Scottish way of birth and death. The insights gained there as well as others in a recent book purchase (which I haggled down to a quarter of its original price!) on European soldier deaths abroad between 1815 and 1914 and the improvements made as a result which also filtered down to the British population at large, prompted me to look more closely at some of the deaths of my ancestors and relatives over the years. It has been an instructive and interesting exercise. It is limited to Scottish deaths up to the 1950s because these are readily accessible online through ScotlandsPeople and it is limited to more immediate family individuals because the death extracts have to be paid for – and while I have looked up most of the dates of deaths of ancestral siblings and cousins, I haven’t paid to see the actual certificates.

However, I still had over fifty adult death extracts ranging from Jean Meikison in 1798 (aged 50-60, of fever) to Isabella Henderson Scorgie in 1957 (aged 83, of hypostatic pneumonia and senility) – a total of 23 males and 32 females and 33 deaths before 1900 and 22 after. The Scottish death certificates, apart from the very early ones before about 1830, are very informative – providing details on spouses, addresses, occupations and parents (as well as whether illegitimate) in addition to date, time and place of death, age at death, cause of death, duration of condition, and informant (including usual residence).

In the nineteenth century, Europe made many forays into the tropical world as a consequence of trade, exploration and conquest. It was eventually understood that it was disease rather than climate that killed soldiers and that soldiers staying at home were healthier than those in far away places. Soldiers in barracks overseas were also generally healthier than those in the countryside. And it is a fact that more soldiers died of disease abroad than they did fighting battles for king and country. The death rate of soldiers abroad in the early to mid-nineteenth century (and undoubtedly before) was more than twice that of those remaining on home soil. And since this had a tremendous monetary cost to the Army, then the authorities were naturally keen to improve conditions for their troops and eliminate diseases as much as they could.

Our ancestors often lived many in one room (ten in a bed and the little one said)  and shared common washing facilities with their neighbours. However, with improvements in living and sanitary conditions, nutrition, water treatment, medical knowledge and health care, then widespread diseases such as tuberculosis virtually disappeared. Slums and tenement buildings in large cities such as Glasgow were still being demolished as late as the 1950s and 1960s. As a result of such improvements, life expectancy has generally risen over the years. In my small sample, which did not include children, in the 1850s for instance, the range of ages at death was 40-75 years; in the 1860s it was 40-65; in the 1870s it was 44-79; and in the 1880s it was 41-87. For some reason it dropped in the 1890s from 33-68 even though there were more deaths, in my sample, that year. However, as one gets into the twentieth century then the lower age of death rises quite considerably. In the 1900s the age at death ranged from 70-83 years old – which is perhaps a glitch since in the 1910s and 1920s the span was a more modest increase at the lower end of 54-87 and 57-92 respectively. But in the 1930s it was back up to 77-94, though dropping back to 38-57 in the 1940s and then rising to 54-94 in the 1950s. The war years did not seem to have any effect – that is to say that none of the deaths appears to be attributable to any military activity.

In accordance with the fact that women generally live longer than men, then my small sample echoes this. Of the men, 13 out of 23 died before their sixtieth birthdays – nine died in their 50s, compared to three women. On the other hand, three women died in their thirties whereas no man did (though four were in their very early forties). Well over half the women died when they were over 70, including seven in their 80s and two in their 90s – compared to one man dying in his 90s and two in their 80s. Prior to 1900 only one individual died over 80 (a male, aged 87 in 1883) - although a female died aged 79 in 1876.

I looked to see if there were any correlations between abode and death (no) or between occupation and death. There were a couple of interesting cases – the 87 year-old mentioned above was a general labourer who succumbed to chronic rheumatism over several years. Another was the master mariner who died in 1865 in Arbroath at age 41 from tropical dysentery – no doubt picked up on one of his voyages; the same may be the case for another master mariner who died aged 41 in 1887 also in Arbroath of cystitis, having had the condition for 40 days. Dysentry was also the cause of death for a farmer in 1858, aged 75. Typhoid fever was the cause of death for a flax dresser – however his father was a shipmaster and thus may have been a carrier of the disease. Another work-related death occurred in 1858 of a 40-year old railway labourer who suffered instantaneous death, the railway train having passed over his body. And no doubt age was a factor in the death at 75 of the mate who drowned while at sea after falling overboard.

There were a few other accidental deaths – one as a result of severe burning, and one who died in childbirth – but the highest incidences (ten cases) of death was simply dying of old age or as it was often called senility or senile decay or decline. Sometimes this followed an illness or condition (such as bronchitis – five cases) and was also linked to heart failure (three cases). There was only one death caused specifically by typhoid fever and only one from tuberculosis – pointing to the medical improvements that had been made. Various forms of inflammation (such as phlebitis, anasarca, myocarditis) played their part as did four strokes (apoplexy), two pneumonias and two kidney failures (Bright’s disease). Apart from general old age debility, the highest cause of death (at least nine cases), however, was some form of cancer – breast, bowel, liver, stomach. Almost all the cases are after the 1920s when presumably diagnosis, at least, and understanding became better even if treatment did not. It may be that some of the deaths in the nineteenth century were also a result of cancer, but the disease was not recognized or understood.

Our ancestors seem to have worked until they dropped - indeed most of the men died in harness and never retired - but judging by the ages, particularly of the women, then we seem to have inherited some pretty robust genes from the Raitts!

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

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