North and South question

It is very unlikely that Mrs Hale has consumption. She doesn't have any respiratory symptoms. Also, Bessy is referred to a consumptive and no reference is made of Mrs Hale having a similar condition.

I agree that Mrs Hale most likely had some form of cancer. From the time she is first seen by the doctor her illness is seen as terminal (as cancer would have been). It is progressive but not especially quick in bringing about death. And it is not contagious.

Although Mrs Hale and others attribute her illness to moving to Milton, the doctor never suggests that this is the case. Nor does he suggest the a change of climate would benefit Mrs Hale. If she were consumptive or had another illness associated with an industrial city the doctor would have certainly suggested a move to a better environment.

Mrs. Hale seems to have cancer, as others have noted. Bessy, however, does -not- have consumption. She has Byssinosis, or Brown Lung Disease, which wasn't even recognized until the 1930s. Byssinosis is specifically caused by cotton particulate which narrows the airways and increases the likelihood and severity of respiratory illnesses such as pneumonia, as well as lethal bronchospasm (imagine your lungs closing in a spasm). Who gets Byssinosis? Pretty much exclusively cotton mill workers who inhale fluff.

Not a deliberate mistake on Gaskell's part; at the time, consumption (aka Tuberculosis) was not well understood. People thought it was caused by climate (it isn't) and that smoking would help (it doesn't). It's not surprising that just about any respiratory illness was assumed to be TB.

I got the impression that it was cancer but it has been a few years since I read it. Also, they would have no way of diagnosing so many diseases-- it could really be so many things but we just know it is incurable.

My two cents is consumption. It's the nineteenth century which makes consumption the go to literary disease. There isn't a mention of coughing, just overall weakness and they tried to hide the symptoms from the rest of the Hales, so I'm not sure we can go by the symptoms. We do know the condition worsened by moving to the North and all of it polluted air, which also fits with consumption.

Sounds like cancer to me. I'd say heart disease but she has been suffering since her youth, as Bess remarks on more than one occasion.

I think it may be TB because she coughs and whilst often cancer irritates the throat I feel it is TB because of the period.

She had convulsions before dying, which suggests a brain tumor or similar nervous system disorder. It would be interesting to hear from a medical historian what diseases would have been diagnosed in such circumstances. Whatever it is, Margaret immediately knows it is terminal and too awful to put in a book.

In the wonderful book "At Home," Bill Bryson describes many perils of Victorian life -- like fumes from wallpaper that could kill people. In 19th Century novels, people often take to their beds for 2-3 weeks with some malady. For Mrs. Hale, I assumed some sort of cancer.

For some reason I thought it was some serious heart complaint, although it could perhaps be more likely to be named than cancer. Consumption has different symptoms.

There was no mention of coughing or anything like that which would have been exacerbated by the poor air in Milton. Congestive heart failure, maybe? If you aren't doing much or are bed ridden, I think it would take years to actually be fatal.

Definitely not consumption. When Mrs. Hale offers to sebd Bessy some port wine she has just been given for her illness, Margaret states that port wine won't help Bessy because she is consumptive (with the implication of unlike Mrs. Hale).

My impression was always cancer, or some form of heart disease. It is always possible that she suffered with rheumatic fever, or other illnesses related to a previous strep infection. Autoimmune disorders are also suspect. Just because someone is sickly all their life does not rule out cancer. Many people can have one condition and still die of another. I don't believe it was consumption. As a nurse I never picked up on typical symptoms of the disease. She also could have had some identified female complaint that lead to uterine, cervical or ovarian cancers. They could explain why she was sick much of the time. It is also possible to have generalized bowel complaints/digestive issues that can lead to Colon cancer. Skin cancers can also be very, very slow growing but when they finally become systemic they can kill rather quickly.

Seems like cancer to me, or at least something else known to be fatal with the diagnosis. Did they even call it cancer then? Who knows. All the info about Bessy and consumption; if it was consumption for Mrs. Hale it seems like it would have been described that way.

I wondered about this myself and could only come up with consumption.

I've always wondered about this, most speculate cancer which makes sense.

There isn't any mention of coughing in the book, however. Some have suggested it was some form of cancer.
It was an anonymous dread disease affecting delicate and complaining Victorian women! ;)

I am pretty sure she is suffering from consumption (as it was known back then) or tuberculosis.