cause of death?

[Stainforth]

I think its Mel?ses, cannot figure the missing letter or 2 out. The first letter is defo the same as in Matthews, the 'l' is definately not a 't' or 'f' but could potentially be a 'b'. The se is the same as in disease and it looks as though there is another 's' right at the end.

[alpinecottage]

When the informant went along to the local register office, presumably he or she just said what the deceased had died of - he or she wouldn't have presented any paperwork completed by the doctor? 
I'm wondering if the informant misheard the diagnosis or mispronounced it, so that the Registrar wrote down the best approximation he could.  Maybe the lady died of, say, measles or myelitis or meningitis or melaena 

Who was the informant?

[Geoff-E]

Who was the informant?

I think "Certified by Dr ..." would imply the passing over of some paperwork whoever the imformant was.

[stanmapstone]

From 1874 a doctor's certificate was necessary before a death certificate could be issued.

Stan

[malijibic]

Her husband, widower of deceased, In attendance was the informant.  I have also just noticed that though the death occurred 15 August, 1882 it was registered on 2 Sept, 1882.  All the other dcs I have show that the death was registered within two or three days. Was there a limit to the time that deaths had to be registered?
Thanks

[stanmapstone]

Normally a death had to be registered within five days. However if there had been an inquest, then the death cannot be registered until after the inquest verdict, meanwhile a coroner could issue a burial certificate, to allow the burial to take place.

Stan

[stanmapstone]

From 1874 a doctor's certificate was necessary before a death certificate could be issued.

Stan

This is what the 1874 Act states:
(2.) In case of the death of any person who has been attended during his last illness by a registered medical practi­tioner, that practitioner shall sign and give to some person required by this Act to give information con­cerning the death a certificate stating to the best of his knowledge and belief the cause of death, and such person shall, upon giving information concerning the death, or giving notice of the death, deliver that certificate to the registrar, and the cause of death as stated in that certificate shall be entered in the register, together with the name of the certifying medical practitioner:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~framland/acts/1874Act.htm

Stan

[alpinecottage]

Perhaps Melrus Disease was the doctor's own diagnosis when he hadn't a clue!    Or more likely, his handwriting defied accurate transcription.

[Sam Swift]

Had a look at all suggestions.
I don't think that it's metritis, while it could be a variant spelling of Melas, this was not identified in the 1800s, Mefruside is a fairly modern drug. Some other possible variant spellings of diseases were not identified until 1920's (such as Melorheostosis could have been written as "Melrius" - Dripping Candle Wax disease).

After looking at all the sections of the site below, there doesn't seem to be any obvious possibilities apart from the fact that "mel" is latin for sweet / honey.

http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/english/EnglishD.htm

The above describes Diabetes as "An immoderate or morbid flow of urine. It is termed insipidus ("tasteless") where the urine retains its usual taste, and mellitus ("honeyed") where the saccharine state is the characteristic symptom. [Thomas1875]

A disease which is attended with a persistent, excessive discharge of urine. Most frequently the urine is not only increased in quantity, but contains saccharine matter, in which case the disease is generally fatal. [Webster]

Diabetes is first recorded in English, in the form diabetes, in a medical text written around 1425."

I would agree with Kathb person who thought it might be diabetes (mellitus version) Mel = sweet / honey and is derived from the word mellus. I assume from the print on the certificate that the deceased died in Wales, and "Melys" is Welsh for sweet, diabetes being "y clefyd melys" the sweet disease. Diabetes can be brought on during pregnancy.  As others have said, I would think that the the place of death would have a bearing on the accent / dialect of Welsh being spoken that would have caused the informant to be misunderstood, as well as a general lack of understanding perhaps of what the doctor had diagnosed (especially if it were a Latin term).


There is also Milroys disease (though it seems it wasn't named until 1892, but was identified before that in 1863 see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milroy's_disease). This could be a possibility.


Personally I would go with mellitus - which the informant may have understood to have been "melrius" (which is what I think is written)

I'm not sure why there would have been a large gap between the death and its registration, if this was the case.

Have you tried looking up the deceased's details in a local paper to see if there's anything there that might help.

Sam