Some were fortunate to make it to their three score years and ten, and gravestones and memorials to folk in their late 80s and even 90s are common enough. I guess it was luck of the draw. We all know that sometimes the treatment was worse than the cure (think of poor Charles II, who had a stroke, yet was "treated" by the drawing of blood, some 16 ounces, given draughts containing ground up human skulls (!), not to mention enema after enema to purge him, and then he was tortured with the application of scalding hot cups and irons. Such was the ignorance of medical science at the time, which hadn't really moved on since Hippocrates. I imagine he was very relieved to die several days later.
Mind you, in my ma-in-law's time (she was born in 1909 I think) there were 4 of them an their mum had been widowed in the war and they were very poor) and they HAD to call the Dr in - you paid in those days of course - as the children had Scarlet Fever and she remembers her mum putting up a sheet over the bedroom doorway which was sprayed with disinfectant to stop the germs spreading any further. Hardly surprising that they were "took bad" when nourishing food (e.g. meat) might only be in a meal once a week and when things were really bad, towards payday (g.granny worked in a laundry) the only meal to be had might be "kettle broth" - chunks of stale bread sprinkled with salt and (white) pepper, and covered in boiling water. When money was even tighter, you could forget the bread . . .
Even when I was growing up, the only things in the "medicine cupboard" - think a shelf in the larder - were Andrews' Liver Salts (which I used to make "pop"), Beechams Powders, and a box of Plasters. Mum seemed to use a lot of those, always cutting herself! Oh and TCP if you cut had a scratch or scraze, and these were generally not covered in plasters but left open for the air to heal . . . We had Calomine Lotion for bites and rashes, and Vick for colds which mum used to rub above my top lip and I HATED that. Mum used Camphorated Oil rubbed on her chest for a cold too. When you were getting well you had Lucozade to build you up, or for adults, Sanatogen. When mum was "going through the change" she took Yeastvite tablets which I think were basically just Vitamin B. One of my favourite things when I had a sore throat were Blackcurrant Pastilles, which came in a little tin, and I would eat like sweeties!
All this has come about because Keith had his Covid booster jab yesterday and we both had our Flu jabs last week. I was extremely ill with Flu back in 1972 or so, in bed for 3 weeks and my lungs permanently affected so to have a degree of protection against getting it badly again is a relief for me. It can be a killer. As can Covid still, of course, when you have underlying health problems, which we both do. I think we take our health for granted until problems arise but thank heavens we have moved on from how medicine was practiced - even when I was a child in the 50s.
Landed gentry weren't exempt either - on reading these details, Keith said he almost certainly died from Malaria, as so many did along the Malabar coast. Whether he was in the employ of the British Army, or worked for the East India Company, I haven't been able to discover. 34 is young though . . . This memorial is in St Mary's Church in Fownhope, another one to write up about.
Then even if you survived War (the Zulu wars in this case), PTSD might overwhelm you and scarcely surprising in this case as Private Robert Jones was awarded his V.C. for his bravery at Rorke's Drift, but subsequently took his own life.
Hoping you are all healthy today. Grab each morning by the throat and do something special, notice something beautiful, tell your family how special they are. Take pleasure in the minutiae of life. Tomorrow a meteorite might fall on your head!
