Death - The Uncertain Certainty: Changing definitions of medical death in Britain c. 1750 to 1850

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Death is a certainty for all humans. Yet, for centuries, defining the precise moment of death has been uncertain. The boundary between life and death was much debated in medical and scientific circles during the Georgian period in Britain. Determining medical death was difficult when the equipment in a doctor's bag was limited to a fleam [sic] (to test for blood circulation), pepper (to make the patient sneeze) or a mirror (to see breath). It was often said, in popular culture, that a patient was not dead until a doctor determined so. Medical theories developed to provide an explanation of the anatomical/physiological changes that caused the body to visibly shift from peri-mortem (warm but dead looking) to post-mortem (rigor mortis). Around 1800, medical practitioners identified that the cessation of heart, lung, and brain functions caused a person to be 'truly dead'; yet this neglected discourse continues to be pivotal in resuscitation medicine today - a hidden history. For much of the 18th and 19th centuries, ordinary people feared being misdiagnosed as dead, worried about their soul post-death, and sought to provide care for those left behind. Such societal concerns were mitigated through coroners'inquests, prayer, and the use of last wills & testaments. This proposed PhD sits at the intersection of all this medical uncertainty about the certainty of death in Britain between 1750 - 1850.The main research question: Why was medical death such an uncertain science, and what impact did this have on cultural understandings of the timings of death for those that lived between 1750 and 1850 in Britain? To investigate this neglected historiographical topic, in Year 1 a literature review will be undertaken. Having identified the research gap, archival work will be undertaken in County Record Offices and the National Archives, London.Quantitative and qualitative methods: Years 1-2 will analyze private diaries, family letters, medicalreports, hospital records and newspaper accounts, about the 'dead-alive', 'truly dead' and 'dangerous dead'. This will involve research at the Wellcome Trust, Lambeth Palace Library, and the Church of England Record Centre on religious definitions of death, concerns about the afterlife, and how last wills and testaments were used to provide posthumous care. Prosopography will explore practitioners - James Curry, Anthony Fothergill, Alexander Johnson, and Charles Kite - so-called experts on the signs, timing, and definition of medical death. By Year 3, a unique dataset will be created to produce a statistical reappraisal of people misdiagnosed as dead in Britain. This will be based on refined case- study analysis of rural, urbanized, semi-industrial, industrial communities to compare regional, intra- regional, and metropolitan perspectives on how coroners' inquests and assizes courts were used to investigate uncertain death, including bodies stolen by resurrectionists, in Britain c. 1750 to 1850.Impact: The 18th /19th century doctor shared the same fundamental ethical dilemmas as the 21stconsultant in resuscitation medicine. Although improved technology can trace the faintest signs of life - the timing of medical death has remained the 'uncertain certainty' in modern bioethics.