Love those obscure reference books

How can you not love reference books? My co-worker was sitting at the desk laughing with a faculty member about a page in an old reference book from our archives. It has data on causes of death in 1797. These include such strange causes as:

• evil (2)
• grief (3)
• head ache (5)
• water in the head (66)
• itch (2)
• lunatic (94)
• mortification (206)
• sore throat (12)
• teeth (935)
• dropped down dead (6)
• killed by a cow (1)