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Why the Bronte sisters may have died so young (2019)
- deepsun 5y agoSo why? Article doesn't answer the question.
- forkerenok 5y agoMaybe it's more prosaic than what you expected (I did), but it's there: > Haworth's drinking water, they believe, came from springs which were contaminated by rainwater that had soaked through the church graveyard - which was close to the parsonage where the Brontes lived. Long-term exposure to the bacterial infections this caused could have weakened the constitutions of the siblings and those of their neighbours, whose average lifespan was only around 26.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y agoGood Lord.
- meepmorp 5y agoAlso, tuberculosis.
- QuesnayJr 5y agoBecause their water source was contaminated by rainwater that ran through a graveyard. I don't know if that's a plausible claim, but that's the claim.
- mobilefriendly 5y agoSeems possible. https://iwaponline.com/jwh/article/13/2/285/28303/Impact-of-cemeteries-on-groundwater-contamination https://iwaponline.com/jwh/article/13/2/285/28303/Impact-of-...
- kalia35 5y agoYes it does! It’s because their water was polluted by the close proximity of the graveyard.
- kalia35 5y agoVery nice piece of information!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hirundo 5y agoI'm a scifi guy but have read Jane Eyre three times. I don't think I can define the appeal. Or why I connect Jane with Beth Harmon and perhaps Lisbeth Salandar.
- QuesnayJr 5y agoI was just trying to explain why Jane Eyre was good to someone, and it's really hard to put into words.
- spoonjim 5y agoHuh, I quit it at 35 of 38 chapters. I kept reading thinking “surely this will get good at some point” but then I realized that for me, it wouldn’t.
- pugio 5y agoHave you read The Eyre Affair? A quirky, humorous, combination of Jane Eyre with a scifi world obsessed with literature. Lots of fun.
- Hedepig 5y agoAlso a lover of sci-fi/fantasy I watched the 2011 film and wondered if I might enjoy reading the book now I know what will happen. But you've convinced me to give it a go. I know it's not quite the same but I'm Reading through the Anne of Green Gables series and thoroughly enjoying it.
- turndown 5y ago>In the 19th century, however, women were unable to eat or drink and could die from malnutrition and dehydration. What?
- ip26 5y agoIt’s saying (poorly) that women afflicted by hyperemesis gravidarum couldn’t keep fluids down- today, IV fluids bypass this problem, and are extremely effective. The sad thing is there are also very successful oral fluid replacement regimes, but they are hard & not intuitive.
- turndown 5y agoAh I see, thank you for that.
- burnished 5y agoWhat are those techniques? I'm quite intrigued by 'not intuitive'.
- bewaretheirs 5y agoWater + salts + glucose given orally in the correct ratio; you need water, sugar, sodium, and potassium for it to work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_therapy
- ip26 5y agoWith vomiting, you can administer a spoonful of sugar water or salt water every 2-3 minutes, no more. You must do this for at least an hour. It works because the fluid is absorbed through your mouth, throat, and esophagus before it reaches the stomach- and in many cases once you are rehydrated the vomiting improves. Good tool at 2AM for parents of small children.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rspoerri 5y agoReminds me of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ0RFTHvIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQ0RFTHvIo > Dr Suzannah Lipscomb show us the dangerous ways the Victorians adulterated food and its deadly consequences. Apparently they added something to milk which made it smell ok even whem spoiled. But causing tuberculosis and killing huge amounts of ppls.
- rblatz 5y agoExcellent video, thanks for sharing.
- perl4ever 5y agoAdditives put tuberculosis in milk? Are you sure it wasn't the cows that had TB?
- btowngar 5y agoI assumed they meant that the additives made it difficult to detect that the milk had gone off and so it was easier to get sick from it. To you point however, I don't understand how that could have increased the transmission of TB as that is caused by cows infected with Bovine TB and (AFAIK) that can't simply be detected by taste or smell.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- labawi 5y agoWatching the video, it seems they assumed TB grew in milk, but according to growth requirements[1], it seems unlikely, and an unwarranted conclusion. Still, it seems boric acid could have caused irritation, directly helping TB infect people. Also it reduced acidification, which would change bacterial population (for better or worse), and increasing bacterial loads of "spoiled" milk could weaken human defences, or not .. I wouldn't blame Bovine TB on boric acid added to milk without further study. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_bovis#Growth_requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycobacterium_bovis#Growth_req...
- DoreenMichele 5y agoMany years ago, I lived in a trailer for a few months. My health went to hell and the experience was nightmarish. While living there, I swore to myself I would never live in a trailer again and stated "I would rather live in a tent." Which I did, in actual fact, do for some years at a later date. I got healthier while sleeping in a tent and desperately poor. Doctors used to take their little black bag and do house calls. This allowed them to know a lot of things about your life without asking and to factor that into their diagnosis and treatment. I think medicine is worse off for no longer doing that and I think Sick Building Syndrome is much more prevalent than people realize.
- burlesona 5y agoI haven’t thought about the context gained by a house call before, but that’s a very good point. Thanks for sharing.
- halsom 5y agoDoctors still do house calls, but if you’re poor then you’re lucky to be seeing a doctor at all. Neither of these things have changed.
- dboreham 5y agoUnless you live in a country with universal healthcare.
- AdrianB1 5y agoThere is no relation between universal healthcare and house visits. I live in a country with universal healthcare where house calls don't exist.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoI believe the parent commenter was noting that with universal healthcare the relation to poverty and not being to see the doctor was not longer a problem.
- worik 5y agoPeople are still living, and dying, like this. Usually not the middle classes though.
- portemonnaie 5y agoWhere, how?
- worik 5y agoIn the USA
- portemonnaie 5y agocitation?
- worik 5y agoYou must be kidding! Literately three seconds on duckduck and... https://nhchc.org/clinical-practice/homeless-services/ethical-and-cultural-issues/poverty-health/ https://nhchc.org/clinical-practice/homeless-services/ethica... I cannot be bothered going deeper. This is not my field. But millions of Americans are having their lives cut short for all sorts of easily, if not cheaply, remedied causes
- kulig 5y agoHuman life used to be fucking disgusting, jesus
- publicola1990 5y agoBranwell Bronte, their brother also died young.
- winstonsmith 5y agoThe article seems to be based on an 1850 report initiated by Patrick Brontë. It's available online: https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sanitary-report-on-haworth-home-to-the-bronts https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/sanitary-report-on-hawort...