Daily AncestorDropsy
Dropsy is the old name for swelling caused by fluid building up in the body, now called edema; it was a symptom of heart, kidney or liver failure.
Dropsy described swelling from water collecting in the tissues, often in the legs, belly or chest. Today this is called edema, and it is a sign of an underlying problem rather than a disease in itself.
On a death record, dropsy usually means the person died of something that caused the swelling, most often failing heart, kidneys or liver. Variants such as dropsy of the chest or dropsy of the heart point to where the fluid was found.
As seen in a recordCause of death column, 1850 to 1880 federal mortality schedule
Wm. Hurd, 66, M, W, Married, Va., January, Dropsy, 90 days
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Daily Ancestor. "Dropsy." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/dropsy. Last checked 2026-10-01.