Because it took until the 20th century for allergy as an immunological concept to be developed, Georgian era physicians wouldn’t have blamed Lord Bridgerton’s death on anaphylaxis. But it’s not as though medical professionals weren’t puzzled by these strange reactions … in cases where someone reacted weirdly to a type of food, drug, or perhaps a bee sting, physicians usually chalked it up to an ‘idiosyncrasy.’

In his Medicinal Dictionary—published in 1743—Robert James provided a definition of ‘idiosyncrasy’:

Every Individual has a State of Health peculiar to himself; and as different Bodies seem to vary from each other, both with respect to the Solids and Fluids, tho’ each may, at the same time, be in a sound Condition, this Peculiarity of Constitutions, by which they differ from other sound Bodies, is called Idiosyncrasy.

To give an example, Scottish physician William Cullen in his Lectures on the Materia Medica (1773) explained how some people could not help but react strangely to certain foods. It seemed that even “a small bit of egg, crab, &c” brought about “spasmodic symptoms . . . which . . . can only be explained from idiosyncrasy.”

All right—food allergies were (in general) written off as ‘idiosyncrasies.’ But what about other types of allergies? As it happened, some medical professionals were starting to clue into ‘hay fever’ by the late 1810s.

In 1819, Dr. John Bostock gave the first account of hay fever to the Medical Society of London. He explained that during the summer months, victims of ‘catarrhus aestivus’ experienced symptoms like sneezing, tightness of the chest, and itchy eyes. But it took until the 1870s for someone to prove that pollen caused hay fever. Indeed, Charles Blackley (who suffered from allergies) applied various pollens to his nose, lips, and tongue before identifying grass pollen as the main culprit behind his troubles.

But I digress. Lord Bridgerton died in 1803! And from a single bee sting! An uncommon way to die, truth be told. But not an impossible one.

Some contemporary-ish literature touched on the fatal qualities of bee venom. James Bonner’s The Bee-master’s Companion (1789), for instance, dedicated a chapter to “The Sting of the Bee.” After instructing readers how to best avoid upsetting their hives, the author mentioned what appeared to be a contentious issue—being stung to death:

Mr. Keys [a fellow beekeeper] says there have been many melancholy instances of men as well as cattle who have been stung to death by Bees. I never read nor heard one single instance of any such thing, unless of one who was put in a cage, and covered over with honey, on purpose for Bees and wasps to sting him to death.

So here we have a beekeeper dismissing the idea of being stung to death. Nevertheless, Bonner went on to explain that people can react differently to bee stings. While he experiences varying levels of pain and inflammation, for example, others feel “exquisite pain” and “great swelling.” Death, however? Not according to Bonner.

But what about this Mr. Keys fellow? John Keys’ A Treatise on the Breeding and Management of Bees (1814) did indeed mention death. His similarly titled chapter “Of the Bee’s Sting” mentioned the fact that “the stinging of bees … has sometimes proved fatal to man and beast.” Did he cite any examples? No. It seemed to him that this was common knowledge.

I managed to track down at least one instance of someone being stung to death. In a 1765 issue of Journal de médecine, chirurgie, pharmacie, etc., M. Debrest claimed that a bee had felled one of his patients. I will include an excerpt:

Un villageois, age d’environ trente ans, en travaillant, vers la mi-Avril, dans son jardin, fut pique d’une abeille un peu audessus du fourcil, en tirant vers la tempe; il tomba aussi-tot par terre, & mourut quelques instans apres. Son visage s’enflamma; &, apres sa mort, il eut une hemorragie fort abondante par le nez.

My French is not great. But in essence, a 30-year-old villager—after being stung near his temple—collapsed to his death; he also suffered from a bloody nose. Apparently, this was not the first time a bee had stung him. It’s important to note that some people who are allergic to bee venom do not experience anaphylaxis until they are stung a second time. Was this the case with the French villager? … Possibly!

Back to Lord Bridgerton. Since we know that bee sting-related deaths existed in 18th century medical literature—and that beekeepers themselves wrote about the ‘dangers’ of their profession—Lord Bridgerton’s death wouldn't have been entirely mysterious. Of course a bee had killed him. But if you asked a physician how, he would not have been able to explain the particulars. To him, it no doubt had to do with Lord Bridgerton's 'idiosyncrasies.'

Sources

Bonner, James. The Bee-master’s Companion. London: J. Taylor, 1789.

Keys, John. A Treatise on the Breeding and Management of Bees. London: Lackington, Allen, and Co., 1814.

Mitman, Gregg. Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes. Yale University Press, 2007.

The Routledge History of Disease. Edited by Mark Jackson. New York: Routledge, 2016.

Smith, Matthew. Another Person’s Poison: A History of Food Allergy. Columbia University Press, 2015.