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Hi Everyone
Please could anyone tell me what is meant by 'Visitation of God' on a death certificate. I can only assume it means my ancestor has committed a sin and is punished by God for his sin.
Mark
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Google is your friend.
I've seen a lot of death certificates over the years, but believe it or not this was the first time I ever saw "Visitation of God" listed as the official cause of death. My first inclination was to laugh hysterically, but a little research soon told me that the unusual cause of death wasn't quite as unique as I first thought. It was actually very common in the middle of the nineteenth century to attribute sudden unexplained deaths in this way - basically a fancy way of saying "natural causes."
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Mark, I think they did not know what caused the death and so was "Visitation of God" I believe this was common practice on early death certificates. Also if the person was elderly.
Try this site for future reference of Death certs.
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishV.htm
This is also from the same site.
Visitation of God From an article: These considerations seem especially relevant to the final category of coroners’ inquests we have studied, those attributed to what juries regularly described as the Visitation of God (‘ex visitatione dei’). This categorization of death (one which was distinct in the jury verdicts from accidental death) seems to have been invoked when death arose inexplicably, or when it followed actions which were not regarded as being likely, under normal circumstances, to have resulted in a fatality. The exact cause of death is rarely noted in the Crown Books, and here too further investigation in the rolls is needed before any definite conclusions about this categorization can be reached. One case in which the cause of death was recorded, a case which demonstrates the occasional fluidity of definitions by coroners’ juries, comes from 1610, when it was noted that a man had died ‘de morbo gallico’, that is, of syphilis. The original verdict that he had died ‘per infortuna’ (by misfortune or accident) had been struck out, and ‘ex visitacone dei’ substituted. It is also noteworthy that around 1600 verdicts of death by divine visitation were regularly brought on prisoners who died in Chester gaol. [ESRC Violence in Early Modern England]
The description "died by the visitation of God" had been used at inquests in earlier times but was no longer acceptable. Compulsory registration of deaths had been introduced through the Births and Deaths Registration Act of 1836/7. Giving the cause of death was optional at first, but the trend towards accurate registration increased. In 1837 the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Surgeons and the Society of Apothecaries circulated a joint paper that explained the need for accurate death certification and urged doctors to provide it. In 1859 a publication called The nomenclature of disease was drawn up by a committee appointed by the Royal College of Physicians. Thereafter it was frequently revised. When a medical practitioner gave a cause of death that was unacceptable, the Registrar-General communicated with him in an attempt to elicit a more accurate diagnosis." 1874 saw the passing of another Births and Deaths Registration Act. It now became compulsory to give the cause of death. The penalty for failure to give the required information was a fine of up to forty shillings. [Ann Dally 1997]
Listed in the 1909 Manual of the International Causes of Death 2nd Revision As: Cause of death not specified or ill defined. [MICD1909]
Regards
Gail
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Thanks Jim and Gail.
They is also 2 articles in 2 different newspapers mentioning this death on the British Library/Newspapers website. Unfortunately i can't read these articles but from the example they show it looks like they was more than 1 death.
Thanks again
Mark
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I've got a death certificate with "Visitation of God" as a cause.
I believe that it was used to cover a sudden death when there was no previous apparent illness.
Could be a heart attack or, more likely, a stroke, blood clot or Aortic aneurism.
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Thanks everyone
The informant was the Coroner and not a family member, so i agree it is a sudden unexplained death because the coroner can not name a likely cause.
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In one of the better "sequels" to the Sherlock Holmes stories (jointly written by Conan Doyle's son and another) Holmes investigates an apparently unexplained death which is described as "by the visitation of God". Of course, it's nothing of the sort and Holmes shows it to be murder and unmasks the criminal.
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