It seems that the Brontës had two older siblings, Maria and Elizabeth, who died due to poor conditions at the boarding school upon which Lowood (in Jane Eyre) is modeled, after which their father took the other girls out. Branwell had not had to go to boarding school.
Of the remaining four, Charlotte lived to be 38, when she died of morning sickness. It was malnutrition and dehydration caused by morning sickness; det er noget, som ikke ville ske nu, havde jeg nær sagt (thinking of Yorkshire or Scotland causes me to speak Danish, lo siento); how often does this happen today, and in what countries?
Six years earlier Anne died at 28, of tuberculosis; the year before that Emily, at 29, of multiple causes but largely unsanitary conditions at home, as their water source was contaminated by runoff from the graveyard; the same year Branwell, also in his late 20s, died of multiple causes including chronic bronchitis, laudanum addiction, and alcoholism.
A passable painter and a good caricaturist, Branwell had been a tutor to a wealthy boy, but was dismissed because he had an affair with the boy’s mother. That is interesting indeed, but how good or bad a record is this record of early deaths for persons of their class in the 19th century?
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Any diagnosis during this period should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s been estimated that 10% of people buried in cemeteries at this time were buried alive (which is why they had wakes.) Infant mortality rate was high and many women died during childbirth which is the reason for many clergy having multiple serial wives. Rectories were often not well maintained. Still true today in Canada. I remember when I lived in a rural rectory that the well water had methane gas. We used a bleeding tank to remove the gas since the raw well water would burn if you lit a match to it!
This post brings back memories. During part of my childhood, I lived at my uncle’s farm not far from Haworth where the Bronte parsonage is located. I’ve been in it as well as having seen the cemetery plots of both Charlotte and Emily. Today the area is home to many Pakistani immigrants and you’re more likely to hear the Muslim call to prayer than the pealing of church bells. Still damn cold and damp.
I have this X who lived in Yorkshire as a young man and attended boarding school in Oxfordshire as a child. He is used to very bad living conditions and I suppose this explains why. But don’t you think the Brontes did fairly poorly, all of them having died of poor hygiene, basically? It’s not as though they died in infancy or childbirth, any of them. Or was even this normal?
Life expectancy in England was under 40 in 1837 and 48 in 1901. This was for both males and females but the life expectancy for females was less than males due to the high instance of death during childbirth. The Bronte family was particularly unlucky. A lot of the public health acts in Britain were passed after the Napoleonic wars not for high minded reasons but due to the lack of healthy men to fight in the conflicts. The diet of former farm workers who moved into the cities after the agricultural revolution during the prior century was so poor that they were unfit for use in the army. Basic hygiene for any class was poor because of the lack of health education.
Even today things are bad. You might find this post from a Scottish tenant farmer’s wife interesting.
http://gentleotterblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/awful-news.html
And pictures of her home this year below. Note that they drink contaminated water since the Laird turned off the electricity.
http://gentleotterblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/farmhouse-tour.html
This is fascinating.
I’ve noticed the difference in nurtrition just in second generation immigrants in the U.S., who are far taller than either of their parents (who grew up eating the food available to them in their home country.)
If you take childbirth out as a factor, I wonder what female lifespans would be for them in 1837? Probably not a large pool of data on that, since I imagine the vast majority of women were expected to, and did, get pregnant. Sounds like the Brontes were especially unfortunate, especially to just die of poor conditions. That’s something I would equate with only orphans and laborers facing in those times, not girls at boarding school.