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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: acceber on Saturday 01 September 07 10:25 BST (UK)
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Hi
This death certificate arrived this morning for an ancestor who died aged 41 in 1902. I can read Cerebral Hemorrage as the main cause but cant quite make out the word under 4 days.
Any help is much appreciated
acceber
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Strain
Certified by...
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Thanks, so would strain mean exhaustion or something similar?
I think 41 is quite young for a cerebral hemorrage, maybe as a result of all the fat and dairy in his diet from being a farmer ::)
acceber
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Maybe the haemorrhage was brought on by exertion, straining to lift something heavy perhaps?
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Just my humble opinion but I think `strain` is what we would call `stress` today. My Mum used to describe someone as having been through a period of strain or is feeling strained.
M
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Cerebral pertains to the head/brain and haemorage means bleeding. I think the doctor described what type (or strain) of bleeding (haemorraging). Possibly strain 4 (type 4) was the description they used in that era.
This seems to be backed up by a sentence I found on a medical website and possibly you could learn more by surfing for the word yourself :-
<<Hemorrhage is broken down into 4 classes>>
Possibly your relative had been 'overdoing' it (working too hard).
Rena
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Just to throw a spanner in the works, ;D I'm not convinced it's 'strain', looking at all the other words they all look the correct length for the word but 'strain' looks too long.
I know there's a word Stridor in medicine but it's not that. Medical language in the 1900's was different than to-day.
I'll keep looking
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Thanks for all your replies, my ancestor was running a 200+ acre farm with only a small amount of help so I can imagine he had probably worked himself into the ground a bit. Heart disease and high blood pressure run in that side of the family which may explain why he had a brain hemorrage at such a young age.
He left a wife and 2 year old daughter, but they promptly moved to America and his wife remarried his brother! quite shortly after... :o
acceber
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Ithink it says 4 Days Strain. I have tried to get the strain to look like something else, but afraid not.
I am afraid that I do not agree with Rena's ingenious suggestion.
Usually a number of days on an old death cert relates to the time the condition was present.
It does not make much sense, but might mean he had 4 days stress?
Younger persons dying suddenly of cerebral haemorrhage often have ruptured cerebral aneurysms. This can be very sudden. But it could mean that he had signs and symptoms of a cerebral haemorrhage for 4 days prior to death.
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Thank you for that info :)
Maybe the '4 days' term meant he had had the brain haemorrage 4 days before and died as a result.
acceber
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Hello
My Grandmother's death certificate also mentions 'Cerebral Haemorrhage 4 days', plus 'cardiac disease'. She was only 27 and I have always thought that the actual haemorrhage lasted four days, but perhaps I'm wrong. She too lived on a farm!
Alice B
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Just to ask another question on this.
'Four days' seems to have cropped up twice in my family now, once as I have mentioned for my grandmother and again in the certificate I have just received for my grandfather. He died from 'Chronic Bronchitis - 4 days. Is that a term used frequently or am I just unlucky to have had two mentioning the same length of time?
Alice B :-\
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My Grandmother's death certificate also mentions 'Cerebral Haemorrhage 4 days', plus 'cardiac disease'. She was only 27 and I have always thought that the actual haemorrhage lasted four days, but perhaps I'm wrong. She too lived on a farm!
Alice - It was obviously all the stresses and strains of running a farm that caused it, that and the high fat dairy and red meat diet! :-\
I should imagine that 4 days would mean the time from the onset of the haemorrage or disease until death.
acceber
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Acceber
Thanks - they were just 'unlucky' due to their lifestyle then.
AliceB
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Ive just had a look on wikipedia and the major cause of cerebral hemorrage is high blood pressure. Of course now there are very successful treatments but in the early 1900's when my ancestor died aged 41 there was none.
My Grandmother's death certificate also mentions 'Cerebral Haemorrhage 4 days', plus 'cardiac disease'. She was only 27
Its tragic at such a young age, recently Dame Anita Roddick the Body Shop founder died at 64 of a cerebral hemorrage.
acceber
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Thanks, so would strain mean exhaustion or something similar?
I think 41 is quite young for a cerebral hemorrage, maybe as a result of all the fat and dairy in his diet from being a farmer ::)
acceber
Life was very different back then. My GGG Grandfather died aged 31 from heart disease, which is also quite unheard of at that age.
Andrew