Joan Grundy has forty years' experience as a midwife and practice nurse.
During thirty of these years, she has researched her own family history, and has
been involved with several family history societies. This publication is
intended to help fellow family historians understand medical terms that are
found in parish registers, death certificates and 18th and 19th century books.
The observations of early medical men were very thorough as they tried to
determine the cause of diseases. They listed every symptom the patients
described and compared them with their colleagues' cases. However, despite being
very good at recognising symptoms they had little understanding of the causes
and had relatively few effective treatments to offer.
For many of the diseases described in this dictionary, the author gives an
outline of the symptoms and sometimes the gory sufferings of our ancestors.
Flesh is put on the bones of our forebears and gives an insight into their their
lives, social conditions and deaths.
Contents:
Acknowledgements
Explanatory Notes
Introduction
a. Basic Medical Terminology
b. Dictionary
c. Non-Medical Terms for Causes of Death
Bibliography
