2007-09-15 15:33:05 · 4 answers · asked by natasha p 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ History
Childbirth and influenza.
2007-09-15 15:41:51 · answer #1 · answered by Mrs. Goddess 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Clearly childbirth was one of them. The other was not cholera or influenza. Tuberculosis was the number one killer of men and women until the early 1900s. The incidence of death from TB was about the same per 100,000 population as the death rate from all types of cancer combined now. Heart disease and cancer were NOT high on the list because people on average did not live long enough to die of these. Both are much more common after age fifty. The overall average life expectancy in the 1800s would have been in the 40s. In the centuries before 1800, smallpox would have been close to TB in cause of death rate, but there are no truly accurate statistics to go by. Data from around 1700 indicates that about one in five women died during or soon after delivery of a child. It would have been somewhat better in the 1800s, but childbirth was VERY risky for women due to infections and bleeding.
2007-09-15 16:09:11 · answer #2 · answered by Spreedog 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I don't know, but I would guess that complications of pregnancy would be one, and cancer; maybe tuberculosis, although that did not confine itself to women. At the time it was called consumption, because it seemed to consume the body. It was also called the White Death. I think I'd guess consumption before cancer; at least they must have been equal killers.
2007-09-15 15:43:20 · answer #3 · answered by LodiTX 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yep- childbirth and influenza or cholera.
2007-09-15 15:44:17 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋