Daily AncestorFelon
A felon, in medical use, was a deep, very painful infection at the end of a finger, a kind of whitlow, which could spread to the bone.
Webster's 1913 gives this medical sense next to the criminal one: a kind of whitlow, a painful inflammation of the covering of the bone in a finger, usually the last joint.
Webster's 1913 also defines a whitlow as an inflammation of the fingers or toes that usually forms pus. When a felon appears as a cause of death, the infection had spread beyond the finger.
As seen in a recordCause of death column, 1850 to 1880 federal mortality schedule
Asa Polk, 45, M, W, Farmer, Felon on thumb
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Daily Ancestor. "Felon." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/felon. Last checked 2026-10-10.