# Need help reading some 1860s penmanship
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 24, 2022, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327 "2022-01-24T21:05:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/1 "2022-01-24T21:05:53Z")
Anyone experienced reading poorly written 19th century documents? I’m trying to make sense of the cause of death on this 1866 death certficate–I can make out the word ‘apoplexy’, but there’s more to it:
[url=https://ibb.co/F3Q1JvD](https://ibb.co/F3Q1JvD)
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### Author:  [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/2 "2022-01-24T21:18:57Z")
Exhaustion of vitae (or possibly “vital”) (something starting with p or f?)
Serous apoplexy (compression of the brain from a collection of watery humours)
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### Author:  [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/3 "2022-01-24T21:22:38Z")
Any idea what exhaustion of vitae means?
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### Author:  [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/4 "2022-01-24T21:28:32Z")
Nope. I goodled for the serous apoplexy meaning, but not finding anything other than the fact that exhaustion is sometimes itself listed as a cause of death at this time.
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### Author:  [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/5 "2022-01-24T21:38:10Z")
“Vital exhaustion” comes up as a term for physical fatigue or psychological burnout. Often related to a heart attack or a stroke. However, one website claimed that it only entered the medical lexicon 25 years ago.
To me, the wording looks like “exhaustion of vital [something]”.
Perhaps he had a stroke, lingered in a coma, then just gradually faded out? Perhaps it is “exhaustion of vital functions”?
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### Author:  [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/6 "2022-01-24T21:40:03Z")
that could be…it looks like there’s a word there at the end that is just too squished up to read properly.
I’ve read a lot of obituaries from the time period, and certainly don’t ever recall seeing that phrase before, so it’s likely a technical term for something with a more mundane term.
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### Author:  [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/7 "2022-01-24T23:20:28Z")
Looks like “exhaustion of vital (functions)” to me.
About as helpful as “cardiac arrest”.
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### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [January 24, 2022, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/8 "2022-01-24T23:33:38Z")
I believe it says “serum apoplexy”.
Not sure what that is, but it killed Mrs. M. Mulvaney in 1920:
> **[News: 1920 Mrs. M. Mulvaney Passes at Knapp - Newspapers.com](https://chippewa.newspapers.com/clip/41173249/news-1920-mrs-m-mulvaney-passes-at/)**
>
> Clipping found in The Dunn County News in Menomonie, Wisconsin on Aug 26, 1920. News: 1920 Mrs. M. Mulvaney Passes at Knapp
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/9 "2022-01-25T00:09:11Z")
> [@eschrodinger](#):
>
> Exhaustion of vitae (or possibly “vital”) (something starting with p or f?)
I think it clearly(?) says “Exhaustion of vital power”. Which sounds like BS today, but perhaps it is just old-fashioned terminology that means something? E.g. immunosenescence
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### Author:  [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/10 "2022-01-25T00:21:06Z")
Looks like “exhaustion of vital powers” and “serous apoplexy”
Here’s a “Reference Handbook of Medical Sciences” from 1887 that uses the 1st phrase for a cause of death
> **[A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences Embracing the Entire Range of...](https://books.google.com/books?id=5tE5AQAAMAAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA52&dq=%22exhaustion%2Bof%2Bvital%2Bpowers%22&hl=en)**
And an 1884 obit that also uses “exhaustion of vital powers”
> **[San Jose Mercury-news 17 February 1884 — California Digital Newspaper Collection](https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=SJMN18840217.2.11&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1)**
>
> California Digital Newspaper Collection
The 2nd phrase is “serous apoplexy”; here’s a link describing its use as a medical term.
> **[Balzac's Serous Apoplexies](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/article-abstract/587074)**
>
> • The diagnosis of a "serous apoplexy," customary in the first half of the 19th century, was based on the lack of knowledge regarding the normal presence of the cerebrospinal fluid. Balzac's descriptions of three cases of serous apoplexy draw our...
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/11 "2022-01-25T00:24:19Z")
> [@whitetho](#):
>
> I believe it says “serum apoplexy”
I found a [Cite](https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/477136) that describes apoplexy in terms of 19th century medical terminology.
> [@](#):
>
> In the beginning of the 19th century, apoplexy was understood to be a disease of the cerebral blood vessels, manifesting with a sudden weakening or extinction of sensation and the patient’s inability to move… It was identified that the main cause of apoplexy was not an imbalance of the four humours but the pathology of cerebral blood vessels.
I don’t know if that helps confirm the use of “serum” or if it suggests some other word.
I also think the primary cause is “exhaustion of vital [p]….”
IANADr., but I think this person died of a stroke.
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/12 "2022-01-25T00:32:52Z")
> [@whitetho](#):
>
> “serum apoplexy”.
And now I found [THIS](https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1023&context=hist_wchest) cite, which confirms the word serum.
> [@](#):
>
> Causes of Death in the Late 19th Century
> mentioned in the Register of Deaths,
> 1893-1907…
>
> Apoplexy (Apoloplexy/ Apop. Fit/ Apoplepy/ Appolexy)
> A sudden diminution or loss of consciousness, sensation, and voluntary motion, usually caused by extravasation of blood or serum into the brain or spinal cord.
ETA: this is perhaps later than the death in the OP’s case. It might not be applicable.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/13 "2022-01-25T00:41:08Z")
Serous apoplexy is basically stroke caused by acute hydrocephalus, or something like that. The patient probably suffered from dropsy.
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### Author:  [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/14 "2022-01-25T01:57:36Z")
I think it’s “serous” which does refer to serum, but is the name of the diagnosis.
I can buy that the other one is exhaustion of vital power. I can’t make out that word, but I do think it most likely starts with p, and doesn’t contain any “tall” letters. And the term checks out.
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/15 "2022-01-25T06:11:05Z")
Yes - its ‘exhaustion of vital power’ and ‘serous apoplexy’
They are both well-known early to mid-19th century medical-scientific facts. Serous apoplexy was one sort of apoplexy, or basically the body refusing to behave normally and relates to sudden imbalances or disruptions of bodily fluids or organs that severely test the system. Without the snazzy 19th century language its still basically the idea of imbalanced humours going back to the ancient Greeks.
The idea that this was an actual condition started being challenged systematically in the mid-1860s, so if Henry Budd had died a decade later he’d probably have a very different cause of death recorded. The handwriting is actually quite good [esp for a doctor].
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/16 "2022-01-25T06:27:22Z")
OK, but surely “serous apoplexy” does not imply the guy randomly popped? The [London Medical Dictionary](https://chestofbooks.com/health/reference/London-Medical-Dictionary/Apoplexia.html) (1819) says “Apoplexia serosa, which happens generally in aged and leucophlegmatic people; carus ab hydro-cephalo”.
The [Cambridge World History of Human Disease](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-world-history-of-human-disease/apoplexy-and-stroke/8212D32C4D95EBE9F2D748C72B839AB0) says that Giovanni Battista Morgagni in 1761 reported numerous cases of postmortem examination of apoplexy cases, which he separated into serous apoplexy and sanguineous apoplexy. So the diagnosis may be based on an actual postmortem examination of the brain, not merely a guess involving “imbalanced humours”.
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### Author:  [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/17 "2022-01-25T06:45:25Z")
Very possibly the death certificate was informed by an autopsy, but the doctor was quite likely seeing and interpreting evidence based on what he was trained to see, which placed emphasis on fluids especially as causal not incidental to death. It would only have taken a minute for him to strangle a chicken to determine the real cause.
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### Author:  [@batsto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/batsto)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2022, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/18 "2022-01-25T13:11:33Z")
Thanks everyone. I always get way more information than I thought possible when I ask a question here.
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### Author:  [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2022, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/19 "2022-01-26T00:24:31Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> I think it clearly(?) says “Exhaustion of vital power”. Which sounds like BS today, but perhaps it is just old-fashioned terminology that means something?
It sounds to me like another way of saying “died of old age.”
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### Author:  [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2022, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-help-reading-some-1860s-penmanship/958327/20 "2022-01-26T00:42:41Z")
> [@Bootb](#):
>
> It sounds to me like another way of saying “died of old age.”
He was 61 😱.
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