decline as cause of death in 1841?

[coombs]

Imagine having it for 6 years? Thomas must have had a hard time. He is on the 1851 census as a labourer. Yet if he died in 1854 after 6 years would he have carried on working until he was not fit to work any more?

[Redroger]

My wife's great grandfather who unfortunately for researchers was called John Smith was born in 1837 at Penistone South Yorks. He owned and worked a cattle farm at Clayton nr Doncaster. He contracted bovine tuberculosis from his cattle, and declined and died between 1865 and 1872. His demise caused this memorial to be placed in Clayton churchyard: "A pale consumption struck the final blow, the disease was fatal, but the end came slow" To be that sounds somewhat in the Victorian Gothick tradition!

[coombs]

They probably escalated in the last 18 months or so before death, although it may depend. Some people may have been laid up for longer before dying. I await any further opinions of the process of TB as it is very interesting.

I did hear that medicines just smoothed the path to the grave.

[Redroger]

When I joined the railway industry in 1956 TB was still in the population, A mass X Ray unit came to the depot annually and X rayed the staff. There was usually at least one had TB out of a staff totalling 300 approx.

[coombs]

TB was one of the biggest killers. It must have been hard for people who had it long term. I suppose the cold autumn of 1854 took its toll on Thomas and he died after 6 years suffering.

[IgorStrav]

My mother's father died of TB in his 40's in 1925.  I have the letters he wrote, in pencil, from the sanitorium they sent him to, promising my grandmother that he would be a better man to her when he got home (he was one of those fellows who spent all his wages down the pub, I think)

He did come home.  But died soon afterwards.

They are very poignant letters, as you will imagine

[coombs]

My great grandmother died in 1953 and one of the causes was a tubercular kidney.

[charlotteCH]

Wasn't TB called the white death in the north of England in the mid 19th C?

charlotte

[stanmapstone]

The book "The White Death: A History of Tuberculosis" by Thomas Dormandy is available

Stan