Historical cause of death 1500s-1800s
What did bloody flux mean on a death certificate?
On a death record, bloody flux meant severe diarrhea with blood, the old name for dysentery. In modern terms it usually pointed to dysentery. It swept armies, ships, and crowded towns, and several deaths in one street in one month usually mark an outbreak worth mapping. Expect it on records mostly 1500s-1800s.
Also written on records as: flux, the bloody flux, dysentery.
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Related terms
Browse the full genealogy records glossary for more occupations, causes of death, and legal terms.
FAQs
What is bloody flux called today?+
Dysentery, broadly speaking. Doctors of the period diagnosed without laboratory tests, so one label often covered several conditions we would now separate. This page explains historical record language and is not medical advice.
How was bloody flux written on death records?+
Clerks and doctors also wrote flux, the bloody flux, and dysentery. Spelling wandered from register to register, so check every variant before you decide a record is missing or wrong.
Where do these definitions come from?+
They are drawn from period dictionaries, government archive glossaries, and standard genealogy references, cross-checked against each other; provenance is documented with the dataset. Inside AncestorIQ, Deep Research reads the record itself and explains terms like this in context, against your ancestor's own document.
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