history of medicine / death
Looked up some archaic medical terms and apparently a thing that appears on death certificates is “body trouble”. I’m sure this is a euphemism for something incredibly sad, but I’m just imagining a doctor shrugging like a mechanic. “Best as I can tell, they had a problem with their insides.”
history of medicine / death
@vruba "Died of a broken heart" is still something they put on death certificates today.
history of medicine / death
@vruba On the occasion of a friend being relieved to have “not a heart attack, just pleurisy”, I’ve been reflecting how many things I thought were “weird Victorian diseases that don’t exist anymore” are really technical names for *symptoms* that still exist but we’re now better at diagnosing the underlying disease.
history of medicine / death
@vruba You could sum up my husband's medical issues as 'body trouble' and that's exactly how doctors treat it