Gunfreak | 30 Nov 2016 8:32 a.m. PST |
So some weeks ago, i bemused to my wife that it seemed like there was a lot more tuberculosis in the late 1700s into the 1800s. Than before. This came as i was reading about 30yw and i noticed a general was dying of said disease. And I realised that generally speaking I can't remember that many historic personalities before 1700 dying of it. Some yes. But there seemed to be a lot more in the 1800s. Now I sort of ended up on the wiki page about tuberculosis. And it does say it became more and more prevalent from 1600s, reaching max in the 1800s (25% in Britain in 1815 died of it) So yay my causal observation turned out correct(if one is to believe wiki) |
Great War Ace | 30 Nov 2016 8:34 a.m. PST |
25% in one year? That's bigger than Black Plague mortality levels. I would be skeptical of that. |
rustymusket | 30 Nov 2016 8:40 a.m. PST |
That 25%, is that "of the population" or "of deaths"? Would that make a difference in Great War Ace's question? |
Gunfreak | 30 Nov 2016 8:45 a.m. PST |
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Norman D Landings | 30 Nov 2016 8:54 a.m. PST |
I'd assume "of deaths". A blanket 25% isn't plausible. Given the date and location, I expect this is a by-product of the industrial revolution – the mass movement of people into densely-packed urban areas led to a huge increase in many diseases. |
rmaker | 30 Nov 2016 8:58 a.m. PST |
There are several conjectural reasons for this phenomenon. Possibly a more mobile population living in high density environments, thus allow the disease to spread more easily, since its vector is human to human via shared air. Possibly better medical recognition. That is, people were dying of it before, but it wasn't being recorded as the cause of death. This could be linked to better recording of cause of death generally. Possibly a new, more virulent mutation. The older strain could have been as prevalent or even more so, but less deadly – a better parasite, as it were. |
Hafen von Schlockenberg | 30 Nov 2016 12:57 p.m. PST |
I wonder if climate may have contributed. Severe winters 1813-1815: link According to the article,1800 began a period of "harsh winters and unsettled,wet summers". |
Gunfreak | 01 Dec 2016 6:39 a.m. PST |
I doubt it, TB seemed to have been quite epidemic through out 19th century. As rmarker says, there are sevral possibilties. It can be one, two or all of them. Clarly the first option is conected, the question is if it's the sole reason. If option 1 happend than the chances of option 3 happening is also bigger. However TB is generally not very deadly, a large portion of the population even today go with the latend version and most of the time the latent version never becomes deadly. Since it's logical that our times TB is the same as the one in the 19th century, it does not appear very deadly. Of that large % of people with the latent disease, a few % goes into active disease and of those with the active one 50% would die from it in the 19th century(it's now down to 4%) Option 2 might also play a part, however, famous people would generally have good "doctors" and so my first observation( based on known historical people that died from it) stands. So I personally lean to option 1 beeing the sole reason. |
grtbrt | 01 Dec 2016 9:08 p.m. PST |
A couple of things to remember – I think it is more accurate to compare 19th century and earlier TB with the TB in todays developing countries. over 1.5 million die of it each year . while the deaths in the US from TB are increasing (555 in 2013 ,510 in 2012) they are still a tiny amount. Also TB tends to kill people with other health problems -so the cause of death will often be listed as the other problem . It wasn't identified as a single disease until 1820 . In a way the weather did contribute – forcing people to stay in close proximity to infected people spread it . |
JSchutt | 02 Dec 2016 5:31 p.m. PST |
A Peer Review is in order…..yeah….sounds about right to me. |