Pennsylvania Death Certificates--New on Ancestry!

[bjb123]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, TracySam!! I located my GG grandmother who was a bit of a mystery to me. I had hit a bit of a brick wall with her re: her maiden name, but now I know for sure. Also, it helped clear-up her mother's maiden too. Thanks, again! Now off I go to look for more.......

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by TracySam

It's weird, but it seems a lot of people died from "chronic institial nephritis" during that time period! At first I thought maybe my family just had a predisposition to kidney disease, but then I realized I was looking at people on different branches of my family who were unrelated to each other, though they all died in or near Philadelphia. So on a whim I clicked on a bunch of strangers unrelated to me, and found it three more times, very quickly, only clicking on maybe 14-15 people. So unscientifically, that's at least 1/5 of a sample of the Philadelphia population who died between 1906-1944. Seems high to me.

I know a whole lot of conditions can cause acute kidney failure, but since it says "chronic," to me, that means the person had this condition over time before it killed them. It can be caused by infection or by medications like aspirin or penicillin, but if the person had some illness, and then went into kidney failure from that infectious disease, or from too much aspirin or penicillin, that would still not be "chronic" interstitial nephritis, but "acute."

Maybe it was just a favored diagnosis among doctors on Philly in the early 20th century?

The only diagnosis I see more in these death certificates is tuberculosis, but that's expected.

From a 1910 medical book, just for fun:

Chronic Interstitial Nephritis. | Henriette's Herbal Homepage