* One of the leading causes of death in children in the London bills of mortality is "Chrisomes and infants" meaning the death of a child under a month (chrisom) or before it could speak (infant).
* For medical practitioners, the wolf was an appropriate metaphor for malignant disease and a widely used piece of cancer terminology. On very rare occasions, it was even a 'real' bodily interloper.
Here's a list of some of the more odd or confusing items, for anyone interested:
Ague = feverish illness, often malaria
Apoplex = stroke (the rupture or clogging of a blood vessel in the brain), paralysis resulting from a stroke – sometimes also refers to other spontaneous causes of internal bleeding like burst aneurysms
Meagrom = migraine, severe headache – this obvious symptom could be deadly if it originated from things like a brain tumor, bleeding within the brain / stroke, concussion / TBI / swelling within the brain…
Bloody flux, scowring, flux = dysentery / bloody diarrhea or otherwise severe diarrhea, often from diseases like cholera
Childbed = death during or shortly after giving birth
Colick, stone, and strangury = severe abdominal pain, bladder/kidney stones, rupture in abdomen (appendicitis, bladder rupture, etc)
Consumption = tuberculosis
Cut of the stone = died during/from the surgery to cut out bladder/kidney stones
Dropsie and swelling = edema, swelling of a body part
Falling sickness = epilepsy, seizures
Flocks and small pox = smallpox, other diseases causing pustules over the body like cowpox and chickenpox
Jaundies = jaundice, yellowing of the skin and eyes often a symptom of liver failure
Jawfain = "jaw fallen" / lockjaw, often tetanus
Impostume = abscess, a deep infection full of pus
King's Evil = scrofula, aka tuberculosis infection of the neck glands. The touch of a king was said to cure this disease.
Livergrown = unknown, some think it might have been another term for rickets or it could be from diseases which resulted in a swollen, enlarged liver – things like chronic alcoholism, hepatitis, or congestive heart failure.
Made away themselves = suicide
Over-laid = infant that died after being unintentionally smothered / parent rolled onto them while sleeping
Starved at nurse = insufficient breast milk, or the child had a disease that caused them to "fail to thrive" / not gain weight and die even though being fed
Palsie = palsy, paralysis or other muscle difficulties
Planet = aka planet-struck, any very sudden severe illness or paralysis that was thought to result from the "influence" of a planet. Like how the moon (luna) was once thought to cause insanity (creating lunatics).
Pleurisie = swollen, inflamed pleura – the membranous tissue surrounding the lungs
Purples = bruising, especially wide-spread – many causes
Spotted feaver = typhus or meningitis
Quinsie = tonsillitis / inflamed tonsils, especially when abscessed and obstructing breathing
Rising of the lights = as an organ meat, lungs are often called "lights" because they are very light-weight organs. Nobody's sure about what exactly "rising of the lights" was, but it may be related to severe coughing and the perception that during a cough the lungs would rise up in the chest. Perhaps croup, a respiratory disease causing a severe 'barking' cough.
Suddenly = unknown sudden death
Surfet = overeating / gluttony, vomiting from overeating. Aside from direct "death from overeating" it may have been a grouping for many types of death that often went along with being overweight – death from untreated diabetes, cushing's disease, heart failure, etc. "Surfet" also might have been the cause-of-death given if someone over drank, passed out, and died from aspirating their own vomit.
Teeth = dental infection leading to death
Thrush = yeast overgrowth / yeast infection of mouth (or genitals)
Tympany = either abdominal tumor growth, or other bloating/distension of the abdomen – especially when air or gas is caught within the abdomen or intestines, causing a hollow sound when thumped
Tissick = cough, can also refer to the coughing and wasting away of tuberculosis
