Phthisis in Herts villages

[Aunt Sally]

Hello!

Does anyone know if "phthisis" , also known as TB or consumption was common in the Hertfordshire villages in the 1880s?

I have two ancestors who lived in a Hertfordshire village, who died of it aged 15 and 26.

I would have thought it would have been less common in the countryside.

Any info, thoughts, or maybe someone reading this has ancestors in Herts who died from it around the same time.

Best wishes,

Aunt Sally

[bearkat]

TB was certainly more common in the overcrowded towns.

The only way to find out how they died is the get their death certificates.  Yes, that does mean paying.

I was in a similar situation.  At first I  resisted the temptation but eventually gave in.  I found that one child died of whooping cough the other of respiratory problems.  It didn't add to my tree but helped me understand the issues our families faced.

[Aunt Sally]

Thanks Bearkat.

Iīve got their death certs, thatīs how I know they died of phthisis - had never heard of it before.  It just seems odd that village dwellers, and two in the same family, should die of it, their deaths being six years apart.

Aunt Sally

[bearkat]

Village people would have visited large towns where TB more common.  Family living in close contact would easily have caught it.  It could even have been spread in schools.

[Galium]

I'm not sure when it became usual for milk to be pasteurised, but until that time milk from infected cattle was one way that humans got TB.

[Aunt Sally]

Good points!

Suppose it was always around, there didnīt have to be an epidemic or sudden outbreak of it.

Aunt Sally

[bearkat]

I'd forgotten about unpasteurised milk.  We take things for granted nowadays.

[Maggott]

I don't think the six years apart is so odd, you know.  The second person to die might have contracted it quite independentlyof the first.  And of course TB can be a chronic disease so patients are ill for some while before they eventually succumb. 
When I was younger I know several people who'd had TB.  To my kids it's something out of history, like the plague.  (Yes, I know both are about still, but neither affect us so much in UK

[Mumsie2131]

Before Pasteurised milk was the norm there was Farm Bottled TT accredited - the cows were Tuberculin Tested - don't now when hat became common but we certainly had TT tested Farm Bottled milk until 1979 when we moved south.
Obviously countryside dwellers were more likely to have milk straight from the farm.