Medical Term

[vita]

Can anyone please help with a medical term? A death certificate shows cause as 'virium defecto' & the nearest I can come up with is lack of strength, which is a bit vague to say the least & not what I would have expected - the lady in question was only twenty one.

[ElizabethHerts]

I found a French entry for this term, and the equivalent is something like "weakening of the body".

Edit: Would it be synonymous with "decline"?

[Phoenix]

What period? Think of all the Victorian novels where women lie pale on couches. While I would have thought that cancer, tb, gastric problems and obvious contractable diseases would have been patent, heart problems, bad periods etc might not have been so obvious.

[vita]

Thanks,both. Death was 1902. Line above cause is partially obscured but I can just make out the words 'four years' so decline sounds likely. Just wish it said from what.
D

[Piwacket]

Maybe Consumption aka Tuberculosis?

[Jenoco]

Could it have been some type of blood cancer/disease?

[Janet]

Anyone?

Institutiones medicae
by Sprengel, Kurt Polycarp Joachim, 1766-1833 (https://archive.org/details/b33090385_0006/page/276/mode/2up?q=%22virium+defecto%22)

I certainly can't translate it, but now you've got me curious, Vita. :d

[vita]

I've looked up translations of some individual words in the link & this is what I found:-



Rupti - torn

Vasis - vessels

Pectore - of the heart/breast

Oppletionis - replenishment

Ponderis - weight

Subitanea - sudden

So seems poor Gertrude had some kind of heart condition, but of course I could be wrong.

pectore is of the heart/breast