Talk:Death by natural causes

Merge

This article and unnatural death should really be merged into one, neither is particularly strong on its own. Richard001 23:57, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

• I think that because neither are really too strong they deserve more information or a rewrite. Natural causes and unnatural death seem significantly different from each other enough to warrent each having their own seperate article. If you want, but both in the death article.

Perhaps if we had a separate article Causes of death (not just a redirect) they could be described there. Richard001 21:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Types of natural cause

Can someone please help me understand this. Why is it that some people are recorded to have died of natural causes, whereas others may be noted down as dying of heart disease? I never understood this distinction, they are the same in theory. 77.96.240.178 (talk) 13:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Heart disease is one of the most common types of natural cause death. Death certificates always state the specific cause, such as lung cancer, atherosclerosis, pneumonia etc. Only a tiny proportion of people who died naturally have an inquest, but in those cases, the coroner determines that the deceased died of natural causes. Natural causes means not unnatural (ie not injury or poisoning). When it is stated that a particular person died of natural causes, such as if a media article states that a famous actor died of natural causes, it means that they, or the person who told them the information they are reporting, did not (for whatever reason), want to specify ischemic heart disease, colon cancer, emphysema etc. Nietzsche 2 (talk) 20:42, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Contrast

It might be helpful if this article provided some "unnatural" causes of death for comparison. For example, is an infectious disease a "natural cause" of death? What about an accident, like falling down the stairs? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

What about something that might be termed an "act of God", such as a lightning strike? Would that be considered death by natural causes? -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:09, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Natural Causes and Age

Is the term "death by natural causes" associated with "dying at an old age"? Or can a younger person die by natural causes, too? I ask this, because as I am writing this, in the article Deaths in 2009, someone is stated to have died "of natural causes" at the age of 58. Eduarodi (talk) 08:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that age is irrelevant. The term is probably used differently in different places/times, but the death of a child from a severe genetic condition is probably by "natural causes". The opposite, "unnatural causes", suggests homicide (and perhaps suicide or death by misadventure/accident).

It would be nice to have some good sources on this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I would have said that the death of a child for any reason doesn't qualify as "natural causes". As you say, we need good sources to narrow down the definition. --Eduarodi (talk) 02:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

"Natural" does not mean "good". In the absence of modern sanitation and medicine, it is perfectly "natural" for a large proportion of children to die from infectious disease.

I've found a source that confirms that my guess is basically correct. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:38, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't think any death is a good death. Anyway, death is always the consequence of something, whether it be a bullet to your heart, a tumour, or a tired heart after 90 years of work. I've always taken "natural causes" to be a general term to mean "for no particular or specific reason". It's like saying your organism has worn off. Please, share that source you've found. It might help us out here. --Eduarodi (talk) 20:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The sources are listed in the article now. They're both available through books.google.com (and probably many other sources). You might also like to read death by unnatural causes.

Natural causes is a large category of deaths, not a specific cause. It's like the difference between "vehicle" and "a 2010 Ford Mustang V6 Coupe". "Natural causes" is frequently reported in an obituary when the family doesn't choose to release medical records immediately. The actual death certificates should report the equivalent of "Ford Mustang V6 Coupe", not just "natural causes". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

I liked that comparison. And sorry, I hadn't seen the links or thought a specific page existed on Wikipedia. Thanks. --Eduarodi (talk) 03:43, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Phrase 'used by coroners'?

I'm not sure these professionals use the phrase much, if at all, on death certificates. The phrase is relatively meaningless.Ykral (talk) 09:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

The phrase is quite meaningful if your job is to determine which deaths were caused by active human intervention, and thus represent homicide (or suicide, or accident) instead of a 'natural causes' death. All deaths in developed countries are classified in this scheme, as society has an interest in knowing how many possible murder cases it's dealing with.

The fact that it's not a detailed description of the specific disease process that caused the natural death doesn't meant that it is really meaningless. It is, in fact, no less meaningful than describing a vehicle as a "pickup truck" or a "car". WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

"Natural causes" is not specific enough, and should be abolished as a cause of death

It's just not specific enough. Organs fail due to natural causes. The cause of death should list which organ failure caused the heart to stop. Just saying "natural causes" is such a lazy cop-out. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.73.133.192 (talk) 00:26, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia can't do anything about that; it's just here to document things as they are. -- Beland (talk) 02:24, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Ah, and I think we actually cover this now at Cause of death#Age. -- Beland (talk) 17:14, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Merge with manner of death

Regarding revert of the merge with manner of death...

@Natureium: Based on the sources I've been able to find, this article seems to be confusing cause of death with manner of death; "death by natural causes" is described by sources as a manner, not a cause. Most of the material on this page was not about this manner of death, it was actually about unnatural manners of death, or old age as a cause of death. In doing the merge and redirect, I haven't deleted any material, but I have moved some material from this article to cause of death, which is where coverage of old as a cause of death seems to belong. Death by natural causes and unnatural death are both too short to deserve their own articles, and can be explained much more concisely in a single article, because most of the explaining is distinguishing between them and noting jurisdictional differences, all of which is now done by manner of death, which also more clearly explains the distinction from cause of death, and after the merge, that also only has to be done once. Does that all make sense? Am I missing something? -- Beland (talk) 17:12, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Support merge. This article is about the legal manner of death and can be covered there, not the generic idea of dying of old age or whatever. Reywas92^Talk 18:27, 25 April 2019 (UTC)

Comment - I added a cross-reference from Manner of death to Cause of death#Age in case someone looking for that meaning ends up there. Hopefully that helps? -- Beland (talk) 02:18, 26 April 2019 (UTC)

Issue with redirectification

An issue has occurred due to this article being redirected; it is used infrequently (though it should be used much more often) as part of Template:Natural Causes, and this has resulted in a # symbol on pages without any clear explanation of what it means. As such, at "Death by natural causes" is clearly sufficiently notable to warrant its own page, we should reinstate it. BilledMammal (talk) 03:49, 9 October 2021 (UTC)