Dr Roberta asked L.L. Diamond:

I enjoyed reading about medicine on you website. contemplating the limitations 18th Century Medicine make me feel blessed to be born in the 19th Century. We all know that women died in great number during childbirth; and seldom living past 40. Did women in the Austen family die of breast cancer, following Jane's death?

L.L. Diamond Until diagnostics were available, it's hard to know truly since someone had to be able to palpate the mass before you could really call it breast cancer. If someone had a small, undetectable mass that was aggressive and metastasized somewhere quickly, I could see it going misdiagnosed. Thank you for your question!

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