You can find all sorts of odds & ends on the 'net. Emphasis on the odd.

Back in the 17th century, a fellow named John Graunt compiled and tabulated the data on causes of death in London over a number of years. All sorts of odd-sounding (and for that matter, many normal-sounding (to 21st-century ears)) ailments and events are listed. Most sound really awful, and I'm sure that the clinical manner of the list tends to ameliorate our idea of just how awful (nasty, brutish, short) life and death really were in pretty much every era but our own.

But we all have to go sometime, somehow. If it were possible to have a say in the manner of one's own demise (short of doing one's self in, obviously) I'd pick "Colick, and Wind."

Especially the "and Wind" part. No sense making things olfactorily easy for my grieving-at-bedside relatives.

(Link courtesy of fellow N.Carolina blogger Is That Legal?)

Posted by Russ at 01:25 PM, June 22, 2003 in Miscellany