I've just picked up this correspondance from a Google search about Phthisis. I have just received death certificates for two relatives who died aged around 40 in 1891 in Bishops Stortford of Phthisis. I'm very interested in 'young' deaths in my family ancestry and whether they are lung-related as I have nieces and a nephew with Cystic Fibrosis, which is a hereditary condition, caused by a recessive gene. I wonder if some of these early deaths in the past, or 'failure to thrive' were in fact caused by CF but it wasn't know as a condition. There's no way of knowing now, of course, but I still find it interesting.
