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Cause of death   /kɑz əv dɛθ/   Listen
Cause of death

noun
1.
The causal agent resulting in death.  Synonym: killer.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cause of death" Quotes from Famous Books



... suffering under fever, nothing but strict watching can prevent them from going down to bathe in the river, or eating immoderate quantities of juicy fruits, although these indulgences are frequently the cause of death. They are very subject to disorders of the liver, dysentery, and other diseases of hot climates, and when any epidemic is about, they fall ill quicker, and suffer more than negroes or even whites. ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... supplication: "If ever I was acceptable to thee, love, oh most dutiful Sovereign, love my defenders! They who rule me ought to be in harmony with thee, lest otherwise they begin to do such deeds towards me as thou least of all men wouldest desire. Be not to me a cause of death, thou who hast ever ministered unto me the joys of life. Lo, while at peace with thee I have doubled the number of my children, I have been decked with the glory of my citizens. If thou sufferest me to be wounded, where is thy dutiful name of ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... understand how the same person can be so kind and yet so cruel. I do not understand how one person can risk his life to save a life—for perhaps you saved mine to-day—and yet cause death, and you have been the cause of death." ...
— The Daughter of a Republican • Bernie Babcock

... Mortality, containing the weekly number of Christenings and Deaths, with the cause of Death, were first compiled by the London Company of Parish Clerks (for 109 parishes) after the Plague in 1592. They did not give the age at death ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... to a beam, drank a large quantity of poison, and, as he kicked over the table, simultaneously shot himself through the head and drew a razor across his throat. Later on the doctor had to fill in the usual certificate. At "Cause of Death" he paused, pondered, and at last wrote, "Causes too numerous to specify." The fable possesses a certain suggestive value upon which we need not enlarge. How, one may well ask, are we to itemise the retail iniquities of a system of government which is itself a wholesale ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle

... however, to have come across correct information about the digging for water by an African elephant by the use of his great tusks—those tusks for the gain of which he is now being rapidly exterminated by man. Serious drought is frequent in Africa, and a cause of death to thousands of animals. African elephants, working in company, are known to have excavated holes in dried-up river beds to the depth of 25 feet in a single night in search of water. It is probable that the Indian elephant's tusk would not be of service in such digging, ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... heard the evidence. You will find a room at the right in which to conduct your deliberations. Your first official act will be to select a foreman and then to attempt to determine from the evidence as submitted the cause of death of the corpse over whom this inquest has been ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper

... have lived in the first half of the nineteenth century. The ruling passion of General de Grandchamp is hatred for those who deserted the cause or forsook the standard of the First Consul. This antipathy is exaggerated by Balzac into murderous hatred, and is the indirect cause of death to the General's daughter, Pauline, and her lover, the son of a soldier of the First Empire, who, by deserting Napoleon, had fallen under the Comte de Grandchamp's ban. The situation is, however, complicated ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden

... in cases of death under different conditions, as stabbing, hanging, cholera; or of shipwreck from explosion, scuttling, tempest. Hence a Coroner's Court expects to find, by examining a corpse, the precise cause of death. In short, if we knew the facts minutely enough, it would be found that there is only one Cause (sum of conditions) for each Effect (sum of co-effects), and that the order of events is as ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... thou art not Caesar's friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar"—against the civil power, and such is therefore guilty of sedition. (John 19:12) "And he [Pilate] said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath he done? I have found no cause of death in him: I will therefore chastise him, and let him go. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that he might be crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required." (Luke 23:22-24) Thus the civil ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... the actual percentage, but I have reason to believe, as will be seen hereafter, that even this percentage is far too high. A good illustration of the unconscious bias, which I tried to avoid is afforded by the reports on the cause of death among children of first cousins. Only 58 replies were given to this question, and of the 58 deaths 14 or one-fourth were either accidental or otherwise violent, while only one person was reported to ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner

... of death, and that the origin of death is the work of the Creator of the world. Wherefore, also, he thus expounds that Scripture, "No one shall see the face of God and live" [Ex. 33:20], as if He were the cause of death. Respecting this God, he makes those allusions, when writing, in these expressions: "As much as the image is inferior to the living face, so much is the world inferior to the living Eon. What is, then, the cause of the image? It is the majesty of the face, which exhibits ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... fulcrum upon which our life-activities turn. It is the life of Man and of planets, and ignorance of the laws of Sex is the cause of death of both. It is the conjunction of the forces of attraction and repulsion; the positive and negative; the centripetal and centrifugal forces which hold stars and planets in their orbits—or rather, it is the two expressions of the one power, which is both male and female, ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... was that one might live three or four days in this horrible state upon the instrument of torture.[1] The haemorrhage from the hands quickly stopped, and was not mortal. The true cause of death was the unnatural position of the body, which brought on a frightful disturbance of the circulation, terrible pains of the head and heart, and, at length, rigidity of the limbs. Those who had a strong constitution only died of hunger.[2] The idea which ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... people appeared at first to have been killed by gunfire, but a study of their bodies revealed that only in a few instances had gun wounds been the actual cause of death. For the most part the wounds had been inflicted on corpses, presumably in an attempt to conceal the fact that disaster in another and unknown ...
— The Star Hyacinths • James H. Schmitz

... first metaphor. Take another. That singular institution of the old Mosaic system, in which the man who inadvertently, and therefore without any guilt or crime of his own, had been the cause of death to his brother, had provided for him, half on one side Jordan and half on the other, and dotted over the land, so that it should not be too far to run to one of them, Cities of Refuge. And when the wild vendetta of those days stirred up the next of kin to pursue at his heels, if he could get inside ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... which fright produced distinct marks on the fetus. There is a case mentioned in which a pregnant woman was informed that an intimate friend had been thrown from his horse; the immediate cause of death was fracture of the skull, produced by the corner of a dray against which the rider was thrown. The mother was profoundly impressed by the circumstance, which was minutely described to her by an eye-witness. Her child at birth presented a red and sensitive area upon the scalp ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... ball, after fracturing one of the ribs, had passed through the spinal column, fracturing the body of one of the vertebra, driving a number of small fragments of bone into the soft parts adjacent, and lodging below the pancreas, where it had become completely encysted. The immediate cause of death was hemorrhage from one of the small arteries in the track of the ball, but the principal cause was the poisoning of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... cases. If a death occurred under circumstances in any way mysterious or likely to awaken suspicion, it was the business of the coroner, assisted by not less than twelve jurors (i. e, "sworn men"), to hold an inquest for the purpose of ascertaining the cause of death. The coroner could compel the attendance of witnesses and order a medical examination of the body, and if there were sufficient evidence to charge any person with murder or manslaughter, the coroner could have such person arrested and committed ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... already posted placards, offering L.500 for the discovery of the actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is headed "Murder," in the teeth of the audacious, solemn declaration by the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death. Query, Was a coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not empowered—required—to send the jury ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... was a good man, he made a good bood; but he is dead." And he touched the top of his head, where the hair had suddenly gone as thin as it had been on that of his poor brother, to indicate, I suppose, the cause of death. "He could nod ged over losing de oder shop. Do you wand any hoods?" And he held up the leather in his hand: "Id's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... took his way to the senate-house, where he lamented him publicly, put Nero and Drusus (children of Germanicus) in charge of the senate, and exposed the body of Drusus upon the rostra; and Nero, being his son-in-law, pronounced an eulogy over him. This man's death proved a cause of death to many persons, who were taxed with being pleased at his demise. Among the large number of people who lost their lives was Agrippina, together with her children, the youngest excepted. Sejanus had incensed Tiberius greatly against her, anticipating that, when she and her children ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... is that we dig our own graves with our teeth. It is sad but true that almost all eat too much quantity of too little quality. Dietary excesses are the main cause of death in North America. Fasting balances these excesses. If people were to eat a perfect diet and not overeat, fasting ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... physical or medical, lives by sheer force of will—it's a miracle of the power of a human creature to . . . . I have it from doctors, friends, attendants, they can't guess what she holds on, to keep her breath. All the happiness in life!—if only it could benefit her. But it 's the cause of death to us. Do you see, dear friend;—you are a friend, proved friend,' he took her hand, and held and pressed it, in great need of a sanguine response to emphasis; and having this warm feminine hand, his ideas ran off with it. 'The friend I need! You have courage. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... might treat these perils in his letters home, there was never complete security. To reassure his sisters he tells them of 81 landings and only two arrows fired at them in one cruise; and yet one poisoned arrow might be the cause of death accompanied by indescribable agony. Even when a landing had been effected and friendly trading and talk had given confidence to the visitors, it might be that an arrow was discharged at them by some irresponsible native as they made for ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore

... light, foreign body in the larynx or trachea may occasionally be coughed out, but the frequent newspaper accounts of the sudden death of children known to have aspirated objects should teach us never to wait for this occurrence. The cause of death in these cases is usually the impaction of a large foreign body in the glottis producing sudden asphyxiation, and in a certain proportion of these cases the impaction has occurred on the reverse journey, when cough forced the intruder upward ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson

... Name? Abode? Occupation? Alive or Dead? Cause of death? Suicide? Temperate, or not? Imprisoned, or ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... reiterated Dr. Leslie, pointing to the breast. "You see that wound? I can't quite determine whether that was the real cause of death or not. Of course, it's a bad wound, it's true. But there seems to be something else here, too. Look at the pupils of his eyes, how contracted they are. The lungs seem congested, too. He has all the marks of having been asphyxiated. Yet there ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... and contusion on the temple of the victim, evidently inflicted by a weapon lying upon the table, which was believed to be the cause of death, until the arrival of the coroner and Mr. Mahr's own physician, when it was discovered that the victim's heart had been pierced by a very slender blade or stiletto. The wound was so small and the aperture closed ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... real extent of the damage done by the disease as a cause of death in infancy is scarcely appreciated from figures alone. There is something more to be reckoned with, which comes home to every man or woman who has ever watched for the birth of a child and planned and worked to make a place for it in the ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... mystical high priest who ought to save, may often be dissatisfied with his work. Let the dissatisfied think of what is meant by saving when there is a sudden fall in the thermometer. Let them recall that it is not bronchitis as a cause of death, nor apoplexy, nor heart disease, as such, that the doctor is called on to meet; but an all-pervading influence which overwhelms like the sea, and against which, in the mass, individual effort stands paralyzed and helpless. When the doctor is summoned the mischief has at least commenced, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various

... had no place in Paul's earnest nature. Life and death, holiness and sin were subjects of moment too great and too real to be trifled with. If Paul would have stooped to flattery he might have quickly obtained his release, because Felix and those following him in office confessed they found no cause of death in his case. They kept him bound merely to please ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... of age, the first cause of death among school children is tuberculosis. The chief aim of the author has been to show the child the sure way of preventing this disease and others of like nature, and to establish an undying faith in the motto of Pasteur, "It is within the power of man to rid himself ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison

... as the immediate cause of death. His heart must have indeed failed him, or else he might have stood this night of storm and exposure, too. I closed his eyes and drove away. Not very far from the cottage I met Foster walking sturdily between the dripping hedges with his collie at ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad

... no more was vital now, But did a mortal poison grow. The lungs, which used to fan the heart, Served only now to fire each part; What should refresh, increased the smart. And now their very breath, The chiefest sign of life, became the cause of death! SPRAT, BISHOP ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... be viewed at will But I to mine own ill Run ever in rash grief, though well I know My sufferings past and future, still my mind Its eager, deaf and blind Desire o'ermasters and unhinges so, That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face, Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... have not paid much attention to this subject, but I do recollect one instance of a bullock that had been killed by a blow of the paw, as I remember being struck by the fact that there was no apparent cause of death, but on a closer examination I found a wide bruise, evidently from the tiger's paw, on the side of the head. A friend of mine of great experience tells me that he has known of animals being killed by a blow of the paw. That men are commonly killed by a blow of the paw on the head ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... One cause of death to which infants are peculiarly liable, and which alone is said to have destroyed forty thousand children in England between the years 1686 and 1799, is being overlain by the parents. For this reason, some physicians caution the mother against having ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys

... on the head with a club, or shot with an arrow, the cause of death is clearly the malignancy of the person using these weapons; and so it is easy to think that a man killed by a fallen tree, or by the upsetting of a canoe in the surf, or in an eddy in the river, is also the victim of some being using these ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... remarkable blood condition. In a strong man, 25 years of age, whose internal organs were found to be healthy, short epileptiform attacks occurred, in one of which death took place. The autopsy gave no indication of the cause of death. Two examinations of the blood were made in the course of the three days he was under observation. In one of these, out of ten cover-glass preparations, not a single white blood corpuscle was found, and in the ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich

... Muggie, a pleasant-voiced lad, who always wore in his face the slur of conscious shame of birth, died apparently from heart failure, an after-effect of rheumatic fever. Tom and Nelly mourned deeply and wrathfully. Smarting under the rod of fate, they sought with indignant mien counsel upon the cause of death. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... ever endured, manifested surprizing vigor, both of mind and body, to the last. The strong, loud utterance, immediately following which He bowed His head and "gave up the ghost", when considered in connection with other recorded details, points to a physical rupture of the heart as the direct cause of death. If the soldier's spear was thrust into the left side of the Lord's body and actually penetrated the heart, the outrush of "blood and water" observed by John is further evidence of a cardiac rupture; ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... body, there were soon mare than a hundred ready for the job; so that before the evening of the same day, which was Friday, two men were drawn out of the water, of whom one was instantly recognised as the hapless duke. At the very first glance at the body there could be no doubt as to the cause of death. It was pierced with nine wounds, the chief one in the throat, whose artery was cut. The clothing had not been touched: his doublet and cloak were there, his gloves in his waistband, gold in his ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the physician he rose from the couch and walked the room for awhile for relief. Then returning, as he was about to lie down again, he fell over. Quickly unconscious, he passed away. Science would call the immediate cause of death apoplexy. ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis

... for murder, was cast into prison.) 20. Pilate therefore, willing to release Jesus, spake again to them. 21. But they cried, saying, Crucify Him, crucify Him. 22. And he said unto them the third time, Why, what evil hath He done? I have found no cause of death in Him: I will therefore chastise Him, and let Him go. 23. And they were instant with loud voices, requiring that He might he crucified. And the voices of them and of the chief priests prevailed. 24. And Pilate gave sentence that it should be as they required. 25. And he released ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... she said, "unless you are too tired. I've been so interested in this case at Medford. Tell me what was the immediate cause of death; was it perforation or just ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris

... of Death. 2. Name in full. 3. Sex and age. 4. Rank or profession. 5. Cause of death. 6. Signature, description, and residence of the person giving the information. 7. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... Bunning had nothing new to tell. Nor was there anything new in the medical evidence given by Dr. Wellesley and Dr. Barber—all the town knew how the Mayor had been murdered, and the purely scientific explanations as to the cause of death were merely details. More interest came when Hawthwaite produced the fragment of handkerchief picked up on the hearth of the Mayor's Parlour, half-burnt; and when he brought forward the rapier which had ...
— In the Mayor's Parlour • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher

... cause of death. Colonel Colquhoun had been out that evening, and had, through some mistake of the coachman's, missed his carriage, and walked home in a towering rage. The exertion and excitement, acting together on a heart already affected, had brought on the attack. He was storming violently in the hall, with ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... make out the cause of death—perhaps it was lightning. He held a POST-MORTEM, and, after thinking hard for a long while, told Mother he was certain, anyway, that old Bob would never get up again. It was a change to have a dead man about the place, and we were very pleased to be first to tell anyone who did ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... side of the old man's head had been fractured by a heavy blow. He had been dead several hours when we found him, but the doctor could not be certain whether drowning, or the injury he had sustained, had been the immediate cause of death. Dangling from a jagged piece of rock half way down the cliff, we found Polly Mathers's coat, torn and drabbled with mud. The clay path above the pool was trampled in every direction 'way out to the brink of the ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster

... also was a doctor. The doctor had talked about a relatively slight extravasation of blood, and said that death had been instantaneous. Said the Coroner: "The body was found on the wire-netting; it had fallen from the chimney. In your opinion, was the fall a contributory cause of death?" The doctor said, No. "In your opinion death was due to an extremely small piece of shrapnel which struck the deceased's head slightly above the left ear, entering the brain?" ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... cause of death as well as the means of sustaining and supporting life. From hence proceed divers fatal distempers caused much more by fulness than by fasting; and to digest what we have eaten proves frequently a ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... the dogs, a good puller, was seen to cough after a journey; he was evidently trying to bring something up—two minutes later he was dead. Nobody seems to know the reason, but a post-mortem is being held by Atkinson and I suppose the cause of death will be found. We can't afford to ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... men, they are not so fatal or so far-reaching as syphilis. The causative parasite of this disease spares not a single tissue in the body and may disturb any or all of its functions, not even mentality escaping. As a cause of death it is extremely frequent. Our statistics ordinarily ascribe to syphilis but a small percentage of the deaths actually due to it; for instance, many of our cases of spinal disease, paralysis, arterial and other organic diseases are tabled under other names, ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... remained absolutely silent in his presence, as though the love of God could say nothing to the murderer of the Baptist, who had not repented of his deed. Finally, therefore, disappointed and chagrined, Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate, admitting that he had found in Him no cause of death. ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... the region of the heart—a spot so small, so insignificant, such a mere speck upon the marble, that but for the pale violet discoloration which spread round it like a halo, I could scarcely have believed it to be the cause of death. The wound had evidently bled inwardly, and, being inflicted with some singularly slender weapon, had closed again so completely as to leave an aperture no larger than might have been caused by the prick of a needle. While I was yet examining it, the fire fell together, and my conductor ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards

... the creek half a mile above where we encamped he fell down and in less than three minutes died. This was a serious loss, as this animal was one of the most serviceable of our horses, having stood the voyage without losing his condition. The cause of death we were unable to ascertain; but the probability is that some poisonous plants existed at the place ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory

... "In my absence, and as nobody knew where I was, there was naturally no one to claim the body. The kind of people who knew about him will take no trouble or risk in a case like that." He was silent again for a few moments; then, "What do you make out to have been tbe cause of death?" he asked. ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... the skin and musculature with bold, sure strokes. An excellent prosectress, Kennon thought. Kennon pointed at the swollen liver and the Lani deftly severed its attachments and laid the organ out for inspection. The cause of death was obvious. The youngster had succumbed to a massive liver-fluke infestation. It was the worst he had ever seen. The bile ducts were thick, calcified and choked with literally thousands of the ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... know that if that girl dies it will be murder? It was only for your sake that I didn't speak my mind before the fool who has just gone. He has seen murder done under his eyes for days, and he is ready to give a certificate of the cause of death. And the strange thing is that in the ordinary way he would be quite justified ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White



Words linked to "Cause of death" :   cause, causal agent, causal agency



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