Dying in Hospital. Integrating and Valorising Sources About Individuals who Passed Away in Transylvanian Healthcare Institutions During the Modern Era

This article explores the integration and research value of the death register from the Carolina State Hospital in Cluj (hu: Kolozsvár, de: Klausenburg), covering the years 1888 to 1895. Preserved at the Cluj County Branch of the National Archives of Romania, in the History of Medicine Collection, this source has been included in the Transylvanian Health Database (TrHD), and contains data on over 1,300 deceased patients, offering insights into individuals' characteristics (such as names, sex, age at death, denomination, marital status, place of birth, date of death, causes of death, and institutional practices). Most patients were young, unmarried males from various parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The denominational structure of the deceased, dominated by Calvinist (Reformed), Roman Catholic, and Greek Catholic denominations, mirrors the broader ethnic composition of Cluj at the time. Common causes of death included infectious diseases and chronic illnesses, while rare conditions were also recorded with notable medical precision in the source. To enable cross-temporal and cross-linguistic comparisons, these causes of death were standardized and coded using the historical ICD10h system. Building on this foundation, the source and the resulting database are expected to support, in both the near and distant future, broader analyses of medicalization, morbidity, mortality inequality, and the evolution of healthcare in this semi-peripheral region of historical Europe. Looking ahead, future research aims to expand the data by integrating admission records and similar registers from other medical institutions in Transylvania and Romania, thereby contributing to international historical demography and the social history of medicine.