It’s already been (at least partly) digitized, e.g. https://www.deathbynumbers.org/data/ https://www.deathbynumbers.org/data/ One thing you will have trouble w

It’s already been (at least partly) digitized, e.g. https://www.deathbynumbers.org/data/ https://www.deathbynumbers.org/data/ One thing you will have trouble with however, is that disease categories and the process of determining cause of death changed a great deal from 1527 to 1858. So the categories you're working with aren't stable at all.