Daily AncestorFatty degeneration of the heart
Fatty degeneration of the heart, or fatty heart, was a common 1800s diagnosis for a weak heart muscle thought to be replaced by fat.
Webster's 1913 describes fatty degeneration as a condition in which oil globules multiply in an organ until they destroy and replace its working parts, and names the fatty heart and fatty liver.
IPUMS places fatty degeneration of the heart with valvular and other organic heart disease in its codes for the 1850 to 1880 mortality schedules. Read it as a failing heart muscle; the exact disease behind it cannot be known from the record.
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Daily Ancestor. "Fatty degeneration of the heart." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/fatty-degeneration-of-the-heart. Last checked 2026-10-10.