If when looking at a death certificate you see a number
listed by the cause of death, it may be a code from the International Causes
of Death. First known as the International List of Causes of Death
when adopted by the International Statistical Institute in 1893, this list
created codes for the different causes of death as a means to codify mortality
for scientific study.
The list is periodically revised and is now in its eleventh
version. Links to the various versions are available here: http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/index.html.
Be sure to refer to the list most recently published before
the person’s death, as the codes have changed over the years. If a person died
in 1922, you would refer to the version published in 1920 to get the correct interpretation
of the code.
In the example below, Augustina Villanueva died September 7, 1922 in Hidalgo County, Texas, with the code 189 written by cause of death. A look at the 1920 International List of Causes of Death shows code 189 to mean "Injury by animals (poisoning by venomous animals excepted)."
I did a quick search in the newspapers on ChroniclingAmerica and Portal to Texas History for mention of Ms. Villanueva's death, but didn't come up with anything. If I was going to pursue this further I would look for a coroner's report or look in non-digitized newspapers.
JO
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