Bible Encyclopedias
Bloody Flux

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

fluks ( πυρετὸς καὶ δυσεντερία , puretós kaı́ dusenterı́a , literally "fever and dysentery"): The disease by which the father of Publius was afflicted in Malta (Acts 28:8 ). the Revised Version (British and American) calls it "dysentery"; a common and dangerous disease which in Malta is often fatal to soldiers of the garrison even at the present day (Aitken, Pract. of Medicine , II, 841). It is also prevalent in Palestine at certain seasons, and in Egypt its mortality was formerly about 36 percent. Its older name was due to the d ischarge of blood from the intestine. Sometimes portions of the bowel become gangrenous and slough, the condition described as affecting Jehoram (2 Chronicles 21:19 ). There seems to have been an epidemic of the disease at the time of his seizure (2 Chronicles 21:14 , 2 Chronicles 21:15 ), and in the case of the king it left behind it a chronic ulcerated condition, ending in gangrene. Somewhat similar conditions of chronic intestinal ulceration following epidemic dysentery I have seen in persons who had suffered from this disease in India.