Old Causes of Death Decoded: Dropsy, Consumption, Apoplexy and More
What the causes of death on old death certificates, burial records and mortality schedules usually meant, why they're often vague, and what they can tell you about your family.
"Dropsy." "Consumption." "Inflammation of the bowels." "Visitation of God." Old records are full of causes of death that sound strange today. They reflect the medicine of their time, when doctors described symptoms rather than diseases they couldn't yet identify, and when many deaths were reported by family members, not physicians. Here's how to read them.
Why old causes of death are vague
- Medicine was different. Before germ theory took hold in the late 1800s, doctors often named a symptom (swelling, fever, wasting) rather than its cause.
- Many weren't reported by doctors. On the 1850–1880 mortality schedules, for example, the census taker wrote down what the family told him.
- Words changed meaning. "Congestion," "debility" and "decline" meant specific things to people at the time that aren't obvious now.
- Some causes were euphemisms, used to avoid stigma, such as for suicide, alcoholism or syphilis.
The most common terms
- Consumption or phthisis: usually tuberculosis of the lungs, the leading cause of death in 19th-century America. "Consumption" means wasting away.
- Dropsy: swelling from fluid buildup, typically from heart or kidney failure.
- Apoplexy: usually a stroke, or any sudden collapse.
- Lung fever, congestion of the lungs, winter fever: pneumonia.
- Flux, bloody flux: diarrhea and dysentery.
- Summer complaint, cholera infantum: severe diarrhea in young children, a major killer in hot weather.
- Teething: given for infants who actually died of infections or diarrhea at teething age.
- Childbed fever: infection after childbirth.
- Putrid sore throat, membranous croup: often diphtheria.
- Brain fever: meningitis or encephalitis.
- Bright's disease: kidney disease.
- Milk sickness: poisoning from milk of cows that grazed on white snakeroot, common in the Midwest frontier in the early 1800s.
- Visitation of God: sudden death from natural causes.
Look up dozens more in our Old Medical Terms dictionary.
Read the patterns, not just the words
Causes of death become more meaningful when you look at a family or a community together:
- Several children dying in a few weeks suggests an epidemic, such as diphtheria, scarlet fever or cholera. Check local newspapers for reports.
- Deaths clustered in late summer often point to waterborne disease.
- A mother and newborn dying together usually indicates complications of childbirth.
- Many deaths in one community in 1918 likely reflect the influenza pandemic.
- Several family members dying of "consumption" over years is consistent with tuberculosis spreading in the household.
Where to find causes of death
- Death certificates, which in the 20th century often list a primary cause, contributing causes and duration. See Finding Obituaries and Death Records.
- Mortality schedules of the 1850–1880 censuses. See Mortality Schedules.
- Church burial registers, which sometimes note a cause.
- Obituaries, which may describe the illness in detail.
- Military and pension records, which often describe wounds and illnesses at length.
- Coroner's records, for sudden, accidental or suspicious deaths.
Family health history
Causes of death can be part of your family health history, but use them cautiously. Old diagnoses were often wrong or vague, and many conditions we now know are hereditary weren't recognized. A pattern of heart trouble ("dropsy," "heart failure") or strokes ("apoplexy") across generations may still be worth mentioning to your doctor.
A note on sensitivity
Records sometimes reveal difficult causes: suicide, alcoholism, mental illness, infant deaths, or violence. These were often hidden from later generations. Treat them with compassion, and think about how and whether to share them with living relatives.