Death in  the Countryside

Diseases

Influenza, or the flu, as it is commonly known is a viral infection of the respiratory tract. The flu is highly contagious, spreading from person to person through coughing or sneezing. It readily develops into pneumonia. An influenza epidemic occurred throughout the world between 1732 and 1733.

Dysentery The most common cause of the death of young children was bloody flux or dysentery. Death in early childhood was common. In Philadelphia, one fifth of the newborns did not reach age two. Dysentery is one of the most dangerous types of diarrhoea and is more deadly than other forms of acute diarrhoea. The disease is caused by a bacteria. Mortality is high among infants and the elderly.

Cholera is basically a result of bad water and poor sanitation. The bacteria can live for a surprisingly long time in water. The disease is an infection of the small intestine caused by a bacteria. The disease inhibits the absorption of water and salt in the intestines. Once the symptoms of cholera set in, death can follow within hours. Most deaths are the result of severe dehydration brought on by diarrhoea. Death often took place within a day or even within hours.

The London fever of 1685-86 having been suspected at the time to a form of Plague, as other such fevers in the earlier part of the century had been,

and no plague having ensued after the great outbreak of 1665-66.

Smallpox, 

But North Pethewin was a long way from London in 17th century.

 It might well have been Smallpox

1667     Great Plague reaches West Cornwall    

1698     Smallpox in Helston

or

Typhus 'The first reliable description of Typhus appears during the Spanish siege of Moorish Granada in 1489. These accounts include descriptions of fever and red spots over arms, back, and chest, progressing to delirium, gangrenous sores, and the stink of rotting flesh.  Typhus was  common in prisons..'

Typhoid The disease is most commonly transmitted through poor hygiene habits and public sanitation conditions. Some historians believe the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, died out from typhoid. Typhoid fever killed more than 6000 settlers between 1607 and 1624.

I asked the On Line Parish Clerk what she thought .  ( Karen OLPC for North Petherwin.)

"The great medical authority of the time is Sydenham. His accounts of the seasons and reigning diseases of London extend from 1661 to 1686,…

"The signs given by Willis are as nearly as may be the signs of infantile remittent fever, or worm fever, or febris synochus puerorum, or hectica infantilis, or febris lenta infantum, <snip>  The age for it is from birth up to puberty; but “similar symptoms are often observed in the disorders of adults.” Morton, writing in 1692-94, clearly points to the same fever under the name of worm fever (febris verminosa). He adds it at the very end of his scheme of fevers, as if in an appendix, having been unable to find a place for it in any of his categories owing to its varying forms—hectic, acute, intermittent, continued, συνεχής, inflammatory, but for the most part colliquative or σύνοχος, “and malignant according to the varying degrees of the venomous miasm causing it .” Butter also recognizes its varying types: it has many symptoms, but they seldom all occur in the same case; there are three main varieties— the acute, lasting from eight to ten days up to two or three weeks; ... the slow, lasting two or three months; and the low, lasting a month or six weeks.
The slow form, he says, is only sporadic; the low is only epidemic, and is never seen but when the acute is also epidemical; it is rare in comparison with the latter, and not observed at all except in certain of the epidemical seasons.

Karen also found this excerpt - "In mid-winter, 1739-40, coals rose to £3. 10s. per chaldron, owing to the navigation of the Thames being closed by ice; the streets were impassable by snow, there was a “frost-fair” on the Thames, and in other respects a repetition of the events preceding the London typhus of 1685-86.”

This made me wonder if it was cholera or typhus causing all the deaths in 1686 in North Petherwin.

There was also this from page 23 -The epidemic fever of 1685-86. 

A letter of 12 March, 1685, says:

“Sir R. Mason died this morning in his lodging at Whitehall. A fever rages that proves very mortal, and gives great apprehensions of a plague.” Sydenham also was reminded of the circumstances preceding the Great Plague of London in 1665. In his first account of the epidemic of fever in 1685 which began with a thaw in February, he points out that the thaw in March, 1665, had been followed by pestilential fever and thereafter by the plague proper. In a later reference, when the epidemic of fever was in its second year (1686) he says: “How long it may last I shall not guess; nor do I quite know whether it may not be a certain more spirituous, subtle beginning, and as if primordium, of the former depuratory fever (1661-64) which was followed by the most terrible plague. There are some phenomena which so far incline me to that belief ” However, no plague followed the malignant, if not pestilential, fever of 1685-86. The reign of plague, as the event showed, was over; the fever which had been on former occasions its portent and satellite, came into the place of reigning disease. It is true that Sydenham does not identify the fever of 1685-86 by name as pestilential fever; on the contrary, he entitles his essay “De Novae Febris Ingressu.” But the novelty of type was partly in contrast to the fevers immediately preceding, which admitted treatment by bark, and its principal difference from the pestilential fever of former occasions seems to have been that it was not followed by plague. Its antecedents and circumstances were very much those of plague itself. Its mortality was greatest in the old plague-seasons of summer and autumn, it had slight relation to famine or scarcity, or to other obvious cause of domestic typhus. Sydenham can find no explanation of the new constitution but “some secret and recondite change in the bowels of the earth pervading the whole atmosphere, or some influence of the celestial bodies.” He enlarges, however, on the character of the seasons preceding, which would have affected the surface, if not the bowels, of the earth, and the levels of the ground-water.

Depuratory – Tending to depurate or cleanse; depurative.    AJP I suggest this is more a scouring than a cleansing ...ie a virulent diarrhoea

CRO North Petherwin WILLS

Valuation and lease book for high rents and leases. 

For high rents records: parish, name of tenement, name of tenant, yearly rent and remarks. 

For leases records: number of tenement; name of tenement; parish; name of lessee or tenant; yearly value; rent; fines; heriots; date of lease; names, ages and abode of lives and remarks. Remarks and annotations include: deaths or marriages of lives and the sale of property. 

Records leases granted 1676-1793. Appears to have been compiled c1770 and then continued in use up to 1793. Manors of: Arallas in St Enoder, Probus, St Dennis, Ladock and Mitchell. Bodmyn [Bodmin] in Bodmin, Helland, St Kew and St Issey. Bulland in St Neot and St Cleer. Fowey - no entries given for this manor. Heslett in Warbstow, Jacobstow, Lesnewth and St Clether. Lametton in St Keyne and Liskeard. Langunnett in Lanreath, St Veep and Boconnoc. Lantyan in Boconnoc, Lanlivery, St Dennis, Tywardreath, Morval, Quethiock, Duloe, St Veep, Veryan, Lostwithiel and Golant. Lanyon in St Buryan, Madron, Paul, Sancreed and Morvah. Luxulian [Luxulyan] in Luxulyan, Golant, St Mewan and Roche. Manely Durnford in St Veep and St Winnow. Nancolleth in Newlyn East, St Eval, St Columb Minor, Crantock and St Enoder. Pensignance in Gwennap, Stithians and Kea. Penventon in Sithney, Crantock, St Enoder, Helston and Constantine. Polruan in Lanteglos by Fowey and Lansallos. Polveithan in Lansallos, Pelynt, Lanteglos by Fowey and St Veep. Rillaton Pengelly in Linkinhorne and North Hill. Scattered lands: Barton of Appledore, St Ive; Boskier, Bodmin; Bove Towns and Broomball, St Mabyn; Churlton Parks, St Ive; Hendra, St Teath; Ixwell, St Ive; Kestle's tenement, Blisland; Lynam's house and garden and three fields in Trelill, St Kew; Menkee Rawling's and Menkee Tokers, St Mabyn; Penquite and Penquite Lower, St Ive; Polventon, Lansallos; Rosebenault, Davidstow; barton of Slade and Boiland, St Ive; Higher and Lower Slidden, North Petherwin; Tredinnick Coad's and Tredinninck Grove Harris's, Lanhydrock; Tredinninck Parker's and Tredinnick Stephen's, St Mabyn; Tregarrick, Menheniot; Trelill, St Kew; cottage and garden in Trevanger, St Minver; Quaker Meeting House, St Minver. Manors of: Treire in St Veep, Poundstock, Liskeard, Lanreath and St Winnow. Tremollett in Linkinhorne, Lewannick, South Hill and North Hill. Trenant in Fowey. Tywardreath in Tywardreath, Cuby, Gorran, Ladock, St Austell, Luxulyan, St Blazey, Poughill, Veryan, Tintagel. At back list headed 'tythes'  [tithes]. 

Lists three parishes: St Sampsons, moiety of Fowey and St Wenn but only information given is about the value of the St Wenn tithes. Most likely for Rashleigh estate.