Lower East Side Tenement Museum

Health and Disease

Contents
Health and Disease >> Childbirth in the late 19th Century >> Cholera >> Marasmus and Scrofula >> Hydrocephalus >> Byssinosis >> Typhus Fever >> Typhoid Fever >> Polio >> Infant Mortality >> Combating Epidemics at the Turn of the Century >> Tuberculosis

Hydrocephalus
At the age of seven months and 11 days, Cecilia Moore passed away on January 10, 1871 from hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus is caused when cebrospinal fluid pools in the ventricles of the brain, causing them to expand. On her death certificate, it is listed that she suffered the disease two weeks before she died.1

Hydrocephalus can be either congenital (meaning it is present at birth) or acquired. The most common causes of congenital hydrocephalus are the obstruction of the cerebral aqueduct or inherent defects in the neural tube. Acquired hydrocephalus can result from brain tumors, meningitis and head injuries that damage the passageways for cebrospinal fluid.2

Hydrocephalus is not an environmental illness in that it is not contagious and is not the result of bacteria. Nevertheless, a breached or difficult birth in which the baby's head was damaged could potentially lead to hydrocephalus. Tenement dwellers would have had less access to trained physicians or midwives experienced in childbirth. In 1870, in both Dublin and New York, it would have been extremely rare for a member of the lower classes to go to a hospital to give birth (see section on childbirth in the late 19th century). From the available birth certificates for Bridget Moore's children, all reveal the place of birth to be the place of residence. When she gave birth to Cecilia, Bridget had already given birth to Mary, Jane and Agnes. As the historian Judith Walzer Leavitt points out in Brought to Bed, childbirth in the 19th century posed direct dangers to women. Lacerations in the perineal tissues, walls of the vagina, bladder and rectum caused by previous births would have been extremely painful and in many cases did not heal entirely, making subsequent births dangerous and difficult.3

See also: Meehan-Moore Family

1 Sanitary legislation, past and future,The value of sanitary reform, and the true principles for its attainment. Parts of two essays read before the New York Sanitary Association , October 3rd and November 14th, 1861; www.emedicine.com.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.

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