Miyamoto Musashi's cause of death?

[Deleted member 196663]

The guy probably got stabbed in his first ever sword fight.

 

[loyalyolayal]

The guy seldom bathes because of paranoia. He was the Matt Lindland of his time.

 

[RoninJin]

Musashi probably fought all cans back then and inflatuated his record.

 

[Osculater]

History says he was the first aids victim

 

[Irenaeus]

Dying at 60 is old in feudal Japan, and dying of cancer isn't weird in any way for a presumably otherwise strong, healthy person, so that part of your line of reasoning is fatally flawed.

As for the exact cause of death, I don't know and can't read the primary sources, so I can't help you much there. I can make an educated guess based on general knowledge of how our knowledge of history is put together, though.

Either there are conflicting sources, I'm which case we can speculate on which of the are more likely to be true, or we have one source which is interpretent in different ways. In either case, unless a cause of death is very obvious (e.g. decapitation), we will seldom be able to make a definite diagnosis based on the source.

I'd be interested to hear if you find any good sources, but I'm plenty happy assuming that he got sick and died at an old age like a lot of the people through the worlds history, and that the exact sickness is a little unclear like most of the people through the worlds history. After all, the same thing can be said of most historical figures until relatively recently.

 

[Irenaeus]

For further reading, this looks promising. I've heard good stuff about de Lange from several people, and he has also translated several primary sources on Musashi's life, so that's promising when it comes to if being grounded in the historical material.
Edit: Why can't I link to Amazon here properly?
Oh, well. The title is Miyamoto Musashi: A Life in Arms: A Biography of Japan's Greatest Swordsman, by William de Lange. Google dat shit.

 

[MusterX]

They didn't know what lung cancer looked like back then. He probably just got old, started coughing, then died.

It could have just as easily been tuberculosis.

Or hell, it could have been pneumonia. It's not like they had great medicine and 61 was pretty darn old for the time.

The average life expectancy in the 1600's was about 35 years old. 61 would have been ancient. To put that further into perspective, I know several people that have died in their 40's and 50's. With modern medicine and knowledge in 2016 they still didn't make it to 61.

 

[HHJ]

Im pretty sure he just died of stomach cancer. If someone would have killed him,they definiltey would have made that known. Someone would have taken credit for that shit.

 

[HHJ]

Musashi is one of the most bad ass motherfuckers to ever live.

Same with Tokugawa Ieyasu,but in a different way.

 

[the ambush]

Musashi held an elite status in society. I am sure that dude was set for life with free miso soups and soapy massages.

 

[El_Dyablo619]

Dim-mak

 

[phoenixikki]

Best manga I've ever read.