Braingle: 'Death Cured?' Brain Teaser

Death Cured?

Trivia brain teasers have some element of trivia in them, but they are not just pure trivia questions.

Puzzle ID:	#33780
Fun:	(3.01)
Difficulty:	(2.43)
Category:	Trivia
Submitted By:	MarcM1098

My great-grandmother was exceptional from first to last. She was the first baby born in the state in 1851. She was almost the first centenarian in the family, but she died in 1950, one day before her 100th birthday.

The cause of her death was not unusual; thousands of people died of the same cause that year and also in previous years. Her death was exceptional because she was the last person ever to die from that cause in the United States.

What was the cause of death?

Hint

Her age isn't important, but the date is. If she had lived just one more day, she wouldn't have died from that cause. No major disease was cured in 1951, but it would have been illegal to die from that cause.
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Comments

kayleeskitties Oct 31, 2006	Working around the elderly daily, I find this 'cure' simply comical. Thanks for teaching me something new. I have something to tell my pts now
zigthepig Oct 31, 2006	Interesting...
Chakoteya Oct 31, 2006	Crazy bureaucracy....
Pizzazz2u Oct 31, 2006	A very wisely-stated teaser, yet people around the nation may not know your fact. The year set it off for me! Keep up the common sense trivia teasers. I enjoyed it, immensely.
MalcolmReynolds Oct 31, 2006	Hint made no sense... if she'd died at 2, she wouldn't have died from old age..
shdwhawk Oct 31, 2006	If you're dead, you're dead. They can't arrest you for dying of old age. Americans... really...
scallio Nov 01, 2006	I have always thought this was silly. I believe people do die from old age. Our society has become one which would like to have someone or something to blame for everything, including death. One cannot simply fall down and call it an accident. Someone or something must be blamed for causing it. Fun trivia.
CountdownCrispy Nov 01, 2006	That's a really interesting fact - great stuff!
(user deleted) Nov 03, 2006	i want too see that one on a episode on CSI:STOOPID
sammybaby55 Nov 04, 2006	wowwwers. That was pretty kewl. I had like to try to figure out what cause it lol for the answer thank I learned somethin new
joefish Nov 04, 2006	I know the Question was "what did she die from?", but I was wondering what state she was born in. you say she was the first to be born in the state in 1851. I google "statehood dates" and Californa entered statehood Sept. 9, 1850. so Cali. seem like a good anwser.
SPUTNIK2 Nov 06, 2006	I thought this teaser was interesting and good
stil Nov 13, 2006	Which states were inclined to track first birth of year in 1851? My great, great-grandparents were lucky to have baptismal records.
lifeisgood812 Nov 13, 2006	That's a nice piece of trivia!
NicoletheElf Nov 14, 2006	That was very intersesting. I didn't know that they cured old age!
fedex337 Nov 15, 2006	great teaser! but i think it should go under trivia...
fedex337 Nov 15, 2006	great teaser! but i think it should go under trivia...
peeve30 Dec 21, 2006	I liked it! Thanks for a good teaser!
hoyty Dec 21, 2006	I agree, trivia may have been a better category. I was also wondering what state could have possibly tracked the first birth in that year.
hoyty Dec 21, 2006	oops....i guess it was under trivia, my mistake.
maddiesmom10140 Dec 21, 2006	No, i don't think the cause of death would be old age. Eventually we will all die. If we make it to old age, something will still kill us. In this case, sounds like multisystem failure. As a result of old age??? Probably. But the cause of death, in my opinion, would be multisystem failure. But hey, I'm no doctor.
Smudge Dec 21, 2006	What you state in the answer about the underlying cause being "old age". It's the same as saying that the Jews murdered in the holocaust were killed by their faith, because the underlying reason their died was because they were Jewish, but it's not the "cause" of death. The cause was whatever method was used for the genocide. In the same way...yes, old age was related to the death, but this particular lady would've died as a result of a stopped heart, or something else. She was born on January 1st 1851...what a horrible birthdate.
coachpisco Dec 21, 2006	Interesting factoid. Thanks.
puttumup Dec 21, 2006	hmmm.i dont think that was a teaser.it was more of a fun fackt..you get an a for effort
gaylewolf Dec 21, 2006	Interesting fact - and I hope I die of old age, too - a LONG TIME FROM NOW!
bradon182001 Dec 21, 2006	Interesting bit of information, but I have to agree with the folks who say this should be in the trivia catagory. You either knew it or you didn't.
MarcM1098 Dec 21, 2006	It IS in the TRIVIA category, that's where I put it when I wrote it, and that's where it is now!
feste Dec 21, 2006	The "old age" metaphor seems to have been displaced by "natural causes."
tpkarth Dec 21, 2006	Interesting fact...
kman613 Dec 21, 2006	I never would have gotten this one w/o looking at the answer - so although hard (perhaps too much so), it was extremely interesting and fun...
lmurray Dec 21, 2006	XIEXIE NI! THANKS! WHAT WAS HER BIRTH STATE?
locutus13ds Dec 21, 2006	Sorry for your loss..
craniac Dec 21, 2006	It all depends on what you mean by "cause." There are primary causes, secondary causes, contributing causes, etc. What the government was after, apparently, as to have doctors list the primary or immediate cause of death on death certificates, not a more general or secondary cause.
Jawn_Knee Dec 21, 2006	She was born in the state of Infancy and died in the state of Trivia.
Amber08071 Dec 21, 2006	YAY.....I got that one!
wordmama Dec 21, 2006	'Illegal' doesn't make any sense in the hint.
schmedley9 Dec 21, 2006	i didn't like that one very much
lukeschett Dec 21, 2006	Is the part about his grandma dieing true?
zaya Dec 21, 2006	While an interesting factoid Cliff, how is this a teaser ?!?
bagogirl Dec 21, 2006	people still die at old age
OhEmGee Dec 21, 2006	to easy im only in 7th grade and i got it right away
I_Write_Books Dec 21, 2006	Very nice teaser! Definitely an interesting and informing one! Thanks!
LaMoV Dec 22, 2006	i think that the clue was misleading.. it wouldnt be illegal to die of old age... it would just be considered incorrect.
vlerma Jan 17, 2007	Good teaser. Death from old age still occurs tho - as the different organs shut down. Good info on this submission. More, please?
vikingboy Jan 23, 2007	I agree with a few others...it is not illegal to die from old age, it is just that the medical field is held accountable for being more precise. People die from old age, and I'll bet my lunch money that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who died after that date that have old age listed as the cause. Gotta believe that the doctor in some small towns took a while to adopt the new policy.
crocodile Nov 07, 2009	MalcolmReynolds and shdwhawk do have a point. Great teaser!
hjordis Dec 22, 2009	She wasn't the first person born in that state, ever. She was just the first person born in the state that year.
MarcM1098 Dec 22, 2009	That's what it says: She was the first baby born in the state in 1851.
elentir Dec 22, 2009	I'm not sure it is accurate to say old age is an underlying cause. Whatever the actual reason the person dies from, can happen to anyone at any age. The mere fact that they are older simply means more time has passed for that condition to occur for them. Had some magical cure been found for that condition (I.e. heart failure), the day before she died, and then a week after she is cured, she is killed in a car wreck, she still dies - and it wasn't due to old age, just that she lived long enough for that cause to happen. Old age just means that more time has elapsed giving more opportunities for something to go wrong. When something does go wrong, that is the cause - not the fact that time has elapsed. I hope that makes sense...
auntiesis Dec 22, 2009	I didn't get it. You either knew this one or not. Can't call a teaser fun when it is about death. But it was different.
EMB92 Dec 22, 2009	I'm confused as to why she would have been 100. If she was born in 1851, and died in 1950, even if it was one day before her birthday, wouldn't she be 98 turning 99?
elentir Dec 23, 2009	Her birthday was Jan. 1st, 1851. She turned 99 on Jan 1st, 1950. She died on Dec 31st, 1950 - one day before her 100th bday on Jan 1st, 1951.
logicgenius Jun 11, 2010	interesting..... VERY interesting.....
Babe Dec 22, 2012	This is such an unpleasant subject when you are actually old. Interesting to you young people. Even though it happens to everyone, it is not something to dwell on.
chimica Dec 22, 2012	The hint is incorrect. It is not illegal for someone to die of "old age - would they be arrested post-mortem? Deletion of "old age" as a cause of death simply means that a medical examiner (or other qualified individual) can't write "old age" as the cause on a death certificate. It is the action of writing it on a death certificate that became illegal for the medical person to do. And, it is true that one can't die from "old age". Certainly organs (etc) become weaker with age, but it is their failure that causes death, not age itself. Age is just a number...
Maggiethe8th Dec 22, 2012	I really enjoyed this. I have always been irritated by people dismissing someone's cause of death as merely 'old age'. You don't just drop dead because you're old. Was it that the heart stopped? Someone's chronic illness made an organ fail? There is Always something. As for people who got hung up on the 'illegal' thing, that's semantics only-just saying that it's no longer legal terminology.
mejajones Dec 22, 2012	Fun and interesting history at the same time.
Bugger Dec 29, 2012	I think the policy enacted in 1951 is entirely reasonable. At the root, it makes no sense to say that old age kills people.
Quocalimar Dec 31, 2012	is IS a teaser, it was posed a s a question to be answered. it IS in trivia now, so it's a trivia teaser, to say it's not a teaser just because it involves something you need to already know is like dismissing any and every teaser you have no fore knowledge on. it IS illegal. Illegal for whom, certainly not the deceased, the it is illegal to be written off. A doctor can't write 'old age' on the death certificate, they must autopsy, and find the ACTUAL cause, as many have said, faillure of a or some systems, caused old people to die. The logic that we die because we are old is based off of the logic that everyone's time to go is predestined.
Obilio May 03, 2013	Quocalimar, sorry but I strongly disagree. A cause of death, be it old age, extreme age, multi-system failure, single system failure or anything in between does not negate predestination - should anyone choose to believe in that. What it does do is cause families to spend more money (often against their will, at least until living wills became common). Also, it elevates science over humanity, which is more prevalent than ever. i'm not in the least anti-science, I just believe real science, statements based on observable, repeatable data, should serve mankind (and animal-kind and our environment), rather than the other way around. BTW, Thanks again, fun and informative!