Historical cause of death 1800s-1900s
What did miner's asthma mean on a death certificate?
On a death record, miner's asthma meant the choking breathlessness of a lifetime of coal dust, the disease now called black lung. In modern terms it usually pointed to pneumoconiosis. Grinder's rot and potter's rot are the same dust death in other trades; the occupation column usually confirms which dust it was. Expect it on records mostly 1800s-1900s.
Also written on records as: black spit, grinder's rot, potter's rot.
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FAQs
What is miner's asthma called today?+
Pneumoconiosis, broadly speaking. Doctors of the period diagnosed without laboratory tests, so one label often covered several conditions we would now separate. This page explains historical record language and is not medical advice.
How was miner's asthma written on death records?+
Clerks and doctors also wrote black spit, grinder's rot, and potter's rot. Spelling wandered from register to register, so check every variant before you decide a record is missing or wrong.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
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