Genealogy Chat

I just got a death certificate through for my Gt Gt Grandmother. She died at the age of 29 so I wanted to know what she died of and it says "Morbus Cordis, Drops of". Now what on earth does that mean? It may be that I'm misreading it slightly so if you think I've got a letter or two wrong please do say so. Theories welcome!

Eleanor

Found these, but suspect there may be other meanings as well.

Morbus Cordis Heart disease. A catch-all phrase for death by natural causes when the exact cause was not evident

Morbus cordis Means no more than heart disease. Probably used by doctors when they did not know the exact cause of death but were sure it was natural causes. May sometimes mean heart failure

Dont know why "Drops of" occurs though

Morbus is the death bit and I think 'cordis' refers to a cardiac arrest caused by a none penertrating blow to the chest. Might mean heart attack

Thanks Keith and Colin. That makes sense. Not sure about the "drops of" bit but am assuming that was some kind of expression.

Are you sure it does not say Dropsy, that is an excess of fluid in tissue surrounding an organ, in this case it would have been the heart.

Jennifer

Hi Jennifer,

I'm not at all sure that it says "Drops of" because that does seem strange and the writing is a bit spidery. I wondered about Dropsy too after googling for the above explanation and seeing it on the list of old words but I'm just not sure that it says that on the cert.

Blooming ye olde writing...

Still, I think it's probably enough to know that it was a heart complaint. Thanks to everyone for contributing.

Eleanor

Hi Eleanor

The "drops of" could refer to fluid retention around the heart. The cause of death of one of my ancestors translated into everyday English was heart failure resulting from dropsy of (fluid retention in) the pericardium.