What did the Brontes actually die from?

[kev67]

What did the Brontes actually die from? I have read that Branwell, Anne, Emily and, later, Charlotte all died from consumption. Consumption is usually taken to mean tuberculosis, but not necessarily. Any chest disease could be termed consumption. Friedrich Engels describes in The Condition of the Working Class in England how certain factory workers would die in their twenties from metal dust inhalation, which iirc was also decribed as consumption, but which sounded more like asbestosis. The life expectancy at Haworth was shockingly low, only 26 years. One reason for this was that the inhabitants got their drinking water from springs, which were contaminated by the rainwater soaking through the church graveyard. Some diseases are waterborne, such as cholera, but I did not think tuberculosis was. Branwell, Anne and Emily appeared to succumb to the disease quite quickly if it was tuberculosis. I thought you could linger on for years with it.

[gea]

This is a great question. I'm not sure if we know for sure. Branwell was a alcoholic and heroin addict and it seems this contributed to his death, although I'm not sure if it was the specific cause of it. He was very wasted at the end and did die relatively fast, surprising his family. It seems Emily died of consumption. She wasted away, growing thinner and weaker and died a few months after Branwell. We think Anne died of consumption. She suffered from asthma much of her life and was always had issues with her lungs. It might be that after losing Branwell and Emily and enduring the hostile reception to her work, she grew emotionally and spiritually exhausted and succumbed more quickly because of that. She was, as she said, ready to go to God and rest. Sadly, Charlotte died years later having finally married and taken pregnant. It's believed that her morning sickness was so severe, she couldn't keep anything down or eat, and that she starved to death. There is a medical term for this but I've forgotten what it is.

But, you're right, some people can live with tuberculosis for years. Emerson did so. There's no telling how long Emily and Anne really had it. And you're also right about the water of the town; it wasn't very clean or fresh. Probably, it all contributed to vulnerable health. Also, Maria, their mother, and Maria their sister (named after their mother) and Elizabeth died young. It seems that mother Maria's line wasn't very hearty or strong. Another sad thing is that their father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, was almost cursed you could say with strength. He outlived all his children and had to watch as they all died.

[kev67]

In their fiction, their characters' constitutions were important. Heathcliff, Rochester and Bertha Mason are all described as being strong, so they are predicted to live a long time. Jane Eyre's constitution is weak. Her cousin does not think she would survive long in India. I suppose Patrick Bronte had a strong constitution as they would have seen it. You would suppose as a clergyman he would often be close to sick and dying people, so it is surprising he outlasted all his family. I wonder whether the Brontes were weakened by living so long in such an unhealthy place. Charlotte and Emily were very small. IIRC Charlotte was less than 5' tall, while Emily's coffin was noted for being very narrow. I think Charlotte blamed the starvation diet of her school, Cowan Bridge, on which Lowood School was modelled, for her short height. It could be fighting infectious diseases during childhood also reduced their size. Antibiotics are given to livestock partly to make them grow bigger. Helen Burns in Jane Eyre was based on Charlotte's older sister Maria. She appears to have succumbed to TB within a few months. There is a character called Robert Owen in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists who has TB. His doctor advises him to eat rich foods and drink milk, but he is so poor he cannot afford it. Your chances of resisting the disease are better if you have a good diet. If the Brontes were especially prone to sickness because of poor diet, this surprises me, because the Brontes were not destitute. They were not rich, but clergymen were not amongst the poorest in society.

[kev67]

We think Anne died of consumption. She suffered from asthma much of her life and was always had issues with her lungs. It might be that after losing Branwell and Emily and enduring the hostile reception to her work, she grew emotionally and spiritually exhausted and succumbed more quickly because of that. She was, as she said, ready to go to God and rest.


I am not sure about that. Anne Bronte actually died at Scarborough. I was in Scarborough last year on one of my penitential cycling holidays. I noticed the tourist sign, saw her grave, visited the church and paid a pound for her last poem, which her sister, Charlotte, titled 'Last Lines'. In it she wrote:

I hoped amid the brave & strong
My portioned task might lie
To toil amid the neighbouring throng
With purpose keen & high

But thou hast fixed another part
And thou hast fixed it well
I said so with my bleeding heart
When first the anguish fell

And then there is more along this line, and there are some verses before these as well. It does not sound like she was weary of life and wanted to die. It sounds like she very much wanted to live. The booklet said she sought medical treatment, unlike Emily. Anne went to Scarborough to recuperate. I suppose she thought the sea air might do her good.

Much of the poem is about keeping mentally strong, keeping faith and accepting God's will, seeing as she cannot change it. It brings to mind Arthur Huntingdon's deathbed doubts about the afterlife from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.