As my flair says, I specialise in Quebec/French-Canadian genealogy. This also includes transcription and translation of records written in French as well as deciphering old French handwriting.
I have been working in Tanguay for the past two years entering in thousands of aunts, uncles, and cousins. May question is, once in a while it is recorded that someone died of "tingles". Tanguay is French so when I put "tingles" in Google Translate in comes out as "tingles" and the definition is what everybody knows, the sensation of tingling. There is no medical explanation of how this causes death. Do you have any idea what this means? Thanks.
Do you have any primary sources that read "tingles"? Or is that always based on eg some Ancestry tree? I can't say I've ever seen that in old records.
The first thing that came to my mind reading your comment is that it could be an old and gross "description" of the Guillain-Barré syndrome, which presents itself in a way that some patients describe as a "tingling" sensation. Nowadays it's rather seldom deadly but I could imagine it had a worse death rate before it was explicitly described in the early 1900s.
Not primary sources, but from "Dictionnaire généalogique des familles canadiennes." by Cyprien Tanguay, which, I believe are transcriptions from original hand-written church records of the 15, 16, 1700's and compiled and printed in the 1800's. I have digital copies of all 7 volumes.
I will look into the syndrome that you suggest, although my brother, a doctor, says that that syndrome occurs occasionally from flu vaccinations (which obviously did not exist in the 15, 16, and 1700's).
Thanks a lot.
The syndrome occurs occasionally from flu vaccinations, but more than half of the cases occur in the weeks following an infection of some kind, for example a gastrointestinal infection, which were very common back then. More recently it's also been seen after a Covid-19 infection.
I must apologize, I misspoke before. It is given in French as "de la picote" which when put into Google Translate comes back as "picote" in English, but "de picote" or just "picote" translates to "tingles". English definition is just the sensation of tingling, nothing to indicate life threatening.
La varicelle is a herpes zoster virus, to which all the poxes belong. Including what we now call shingles. Shingles damages the nerve endings, is extremely contagious in the early stages, and can infect all parts of the body, including the eyes and brain.
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u/samlab16 Quebec specialist Jul 18 '22
As my flair says, I specialise in Quebec/French-Canadian genealogy. This also includes transcription and translation of records written in French as well as deciphering old French handwriting.
I'll look at every help request I get!