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From: "RachLisa" <>
Subject: [SWKY-NWTN] Old diease names
Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 11:11:52 -0500

Main

Old Disease Names
By Sylvain Cazalet



This is a glossary of terms used to describe diseases in times gone by. I have generally, but not invariably, omitted terms that can be found in a modern medical dictionary. I have also included a few terms that appear in Bills of Mortality that are not strictly diseases.

A * B * C * D * E * F * G * H * I * J * K * L * M * N * O * P * Q * R * S * T * U * V * W * X * Y * Z



A
Abasia: Hysterical inability to walk or stand.

Ablepsy: Blindness

Achor: Eruption on the scalp

Addison’s disease: A disease characterised by severe weakness, low blood pressure, and a bronzed coloration of the skin, due to decreased secretion of cortisol from the adrenal gland. Dr. Thomas Addison (1793-1860), born near Newcastle, England, described the disease in 1855. Synonyms: Morbus addisonii, bronzed skin disease.

A ffrighted: Frightened to death. Probably a stress-induced heart attack or stroke

Ague: Any intermittent fever characterised by periods of chills, fevers and sweats. Most commonly identified as malaria. Malarial Fever. Malarial or intermittent fever characterised by paroxysms (stages of chills, fever, and sweating at regularly recurring times) and followed by an interval or intermission whose length determines the epithets: quotidian, tertian, quartan, and quintan ague (defined in the text). Popularly, the disease was known as "fever and ague," "chill fever," "the shakes," and by names expressive of the locality in which it was prevalent—such as, "Swamp fever" (in Louisiana), "Panama fever," and "Chagres fever."

Ague-cake: A form of enlargement of the spleen, resulting from the action of malaria on the system.
Aegrotantem: Illness, sickness

Ainhum: Stricture resulting from minor cuts at the base of a digit eventually resulting in amputation

Aleppo Boil: Leishmaniasis

American plague: Yellow fever

Anasarca: Generalized massive edema. Generalised massive dropsy

Ancome: A whitlow, an ulcerous swelling

Anthracosis: Lung disease caused by inhalation of coal dust. A form of pneumoconiosis

Aphonia: Laryngitis

Aphtha: The infant disease "thrush"

Apoplex / Apoplexy: Paralysis due to stroke

Ascites: Dropsy

Asphycsia/Asphicsia: Cyanotic and lack of oxygen

Atheroma: Slow degeneration of arteries when fatty deposits collect on the inner lining.

Atrophy: Wasting away or diminishing in size.


B
Bad Blood: Syphilis

Barber's Itch: Infection of the hair follicles of the beard area

Bilious fever: A term loosely applied to intestinal fevers and malarial fever. Typhoid, malaria, hepatitis or elevated temperature and bile emesis

Biliousness: Jaundice associated with liver disease. A complex of symptoms comprising nausea, abdominal discomfort, headache, and constipation—formerly attributed to excessive secretion of bile from the liver

Black Death: Bubonic plague

Black fever: Acute infection with high temperature and dark red skin lesions and high mortality rate

Black plague: Bubonic plague

Black pox: Black Small pox

Black vomit: Vomiting old black blood due to ulcers or yellow fever

Blackwater fever: Dark urine associated with high temperature. Severe form of malaria in which the urine contains so much blood it appears black.

Bladder In Throat: Diphtheria

Boil: An abscess of skin or painful, circumscribed inflammation of the skin or a hair follicle, having a dead, pus-forming inner core, usually caused by a staphylococcal infection. Synonym: furuncle.

Bloody Flux: Dysentery involving a discharge of blood. Bloody stools

Blood poisoning: Bacterial infection; septicaemia

Bloody sweat: Sweating sickness

Bone shave: Sciatica

Brain fever: Meningitis or typhus

Breakbone: Dengue fever

Break Bone Fever: Dengue fever

Bright's disease: Chronic inflammatory disease of kidneys

Bronze John: Yellow fever

Bule: Boil, tumor or swelling


C
Cachaemia: Any blood disease

Cachexy: Malnutrition

Cacogastric: Upset stomach

Cacospysy: Irregular pulse

Caduceus: Subject to falling sickness or epilepsy

Camp Diarrhoea: Typhus

Camp fever: Typhus; aka Camp diarrhea

Cancrum Oris: A severe, destructive, eroding ulcer of the cheek and lip, rapidly proceeding to sloughing. In the last century it was seen in delicate, ill-fed, ill-tended children between the ages of two and five. The disease was the result of poor hygiene acting upon a debilitated system. It commonly followed one of the eruptive fevers and was often fatal. The destructive disease could, in a few days, lead to gangrene of the lips, cheeks, tonsils, palate, tongue, and even half the face; teeth would fall from their sockets, and a horribly fetid saliva flowed from the parts. Synonyms: canker, water canker, noma, gangrenous stomatitis, gangrenous ulceration of the mouth.

Canine Madness: Rabies, hydrophobia

Canker: A severe, destructive, eroding ulcer of the cheek and lip. It commonly followed one of the eruptive fevers and was often fatal. Ulceration of mouth or lips or herpes simplex

Carbuncle: A large boil

Catalepsy: Seizures / trances

Catarrh: Inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the air passages of the head and throat, with a free discharge. It is characterised by cough, thirst, lassitude, fever, watery eyes, and increased secretions of mucus from the air passages. Bronchial catarrh was bronchitis; suffocative catarrh was croup; urethral catarrh was gleet; vaginal catarrh was leukorrhea; epidemic catarrh was the same as influenza. Synonyms: cold, coryza.

Catarrhal: Nose and throat discharge from cold or allergy

Cerebritis: Inflammation of cerebrum or lead poisoning

Child Bed (Fever): Infection in the mother following birth of a child, probably due to staphylococcus

Chilblain: Swelling of extremities caused by exposure to cold

Chin cough: Whooping cough

Choak: Croup

Chlorosis: Iron deficiency anemia

Cholecystitus: Inflammation of the gall bladder

Cholelithiasis: Gall stones

Cholera: An acute, infectious disease characterised by profuse diarrhoea, vomiting, and cramps. It is spread by faeces-contaminated water and food. Acute severe contagious diarrhea with intestinal lining sloughing

Cholera Infantum: A common, non-contagious diarrhoea of young children, occurring in summer or autumn. Death frequently occurred in three to five days.

Cholera Morbus: Illness with vomiting, abdominal cramps and elevated temperature, etc. Possibly appendicitis

Chorea: Involuntary twitching of the muscles and uncoordinated movements. Disease characterized by convulsions, contortions and dancing

Chrisome: A child in the first month of life

Cold Plague: Ague characterised by chills

Colic: Convulsive pain in the abdomen or bowels. An abdominal pain and cramping

Commotion: Concussion

Congestion: An excessive or abnormal accumulation of blood or other fluid in a body part or blood vessel. Any collection of fluid in an organ, like the lungs

Congestive chills: Malaria with diarrhea

Congestive fever: Malaria

Consumption: Tuberculosis. A wasting away of the body; formerly applied especially to pulmonary tuberculosis. The disorder is now known to be an infectious disease caused by the bacterial species Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Synonyms: marasmus (in the mid-nineteenth century), phthisis.

Contagious Pyrexia: Dysentery

Corruption: General term for infection

Coryza: A cold

Costiveness: Constipation

Cow Pox: A non-fatal disease similar to smallpox, affecting cattle and transmissible to humans. Used to produce the first vaccinations.

Cramp Colic: Appendicitis

Crop sickness: Overextended stomach

Croup: Any obstructive condition of the larynx or trachea, characterised by a hoarse, barking cough and difficult breathing. It occurs chiefly in infants and children. Laryngitis, diphtheria, or strep throat

Cut of the Stone: The surgical removal of a bladder stone.

Cyanosis: Dark skin color from lack of oxygen in blood

Cynanche: Diseases of throat

Cystitis: Inflammation of the bladder


D
Day Fever: Fever lasting one day; sweating sickness

Debility: Lack of movement or staying in bed

Decrepitude: Feebleness due to old age

Decubitis: Died in bed.

Delirium tremens: Hallucinations due to alcoholism. Results from alcoholic intoxication and is represented by a picture of confusion, terror, restlessness and hallucinations. Commonly know as ‘the DTs’

Dengue: Infectious fever endemic to East Africa

Dentition: Cutting (eruption) of teeth

Deplumation: Tumor of the eyelids which causes hair loss

Diary fever: A fever that lasts one day

Diphtheria: A serious infectious disease that attacks any mucous membrane, although it normally affects the throat or nose. Contagious disease of the throat

Distemper: Disturbed condition of the body or mind; ill health, illness; a mental or physical disorder; a disease or ailment. Usually animal disease with malaise, discharge from nose and throat, anorexia

Dock Fever: Yellow fever

Domestic Illness: Mental breakdown, depression

Dropsy: Abnormal swelling of the body or part of the body due to the build-up of clear watery fluid. Edema (swelling), often caused by kidney or heart disease

Dropsy of the Brain: Encephalitis

Dry Bellyache: Lead poisoning

Dyscrasy: An abnormal body condition

Dysentery: A term given to a number of disorders marked by inflammation of the large intestine and attended by frequent stools containing blood and mucus. Inflammation of colon with frequent passage of mucous and blood

Dysorexy: Reduced appetite

Dyspepsia: Indigestion and heartburn. Heart attack symptoms

Dysphasia: Difficulty in speech.

Dysury: Difficulty in or painful urination


E
Eclampsia: Historically used as a general term for convulsions. Today identified with convulsions arising from toxaemia accompanying pregnancy

Eclampsy: Symptoms of epilepsy, convulsions during labor

Ecstasy: A form of catalepsy characterized by loss of reason

Edema: Nephrosis; swelling of tissues

Edema of lungs: Congestive heart failure, a form of dropsy

Eel Thing: Erysipelas

Effluvia: Exhalations or emanations, applied especially to those of noxious character

Elephantiasis: A form of leprosy. Swelling of a limb caused by lymphatic obstruction. Leads to thickening of the skin (pachyderma) often used as a synonym for filariasis but may result from syphilis or recurring streptococcal infection (elephantiasis nostra)

Emphysema: A chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs, characterised by shortness of breath, hacking cough, cyanosis and a "barrel-shaped" chest

Encephalitis: Swelling of brain; aka sleeping sickness

Enteric fever: Typhoid fever

Enterocolitis: Inflammation of the intestines

Enteritis: Inflations of the bowels

Epilepsy: A disorder of the nervous system, characterised either by mild, episodic loss of attention or sleepiness or by severe convulsions with loss of consciousness

Epitaxis: Nose bleed

Epithelioma: Cancer of the skin.

Ergot: A fungal disease of edible grasses. When ingested, the fungus can infect humans, producing either convulsions or gangrene.

Erysipelas: An acute streptococcal infection of the skin characterised by a spreading, deep-red inflammation. Contagious skin disease, due to Streptococci with vesicular and bulbous lesions

Extravasted blood: Rupture of a blood vessel


F
Fainting Fits: Probably a euphemism for epilepsy

Falling Sickness: Epilepsy

Fatty Liver: Cirrhosis of liver

Fistula: An unnatural communication between two different body structures.

Fits: Sudden attack or seizure of muscle activity

Flux: Dysentery. An excessive flow or discharge of fluid like hemorrhage or diarrhea

Flux of humour: Circulation

French Pox: Syphilis

Frogg: Croup

Furuncle: Boil


G
Galloping Consumption: Pulmonary tuberculosis

Gangrene: Massive tissue death due to injury, disease, or failure of blood supply

Gathering: A collection of pus

General Paralysis of the Insane: Syphilis affecting the brain

Glandular fever: Mononucleosis

Goitre Endocarditis: Inflammation of the endocardium and valves. The most common causes are rheumatic and septicaemia.

Gout: Painful inflammation caused by a build up of uric acid in the tissues.

Great Pox: Syphilis

Green Fever: Sickness - Anemia

Green Sickness: Anaemia

Grip, Gripe or Grippe: Influenza like symptoms

Grocer's Itch: Skin disease caused by mites in sugar or flour


H
Haematemesis: Vomiting blood from the stomach. The blood is often stale and therefore contains coagulated particles resembling coffee grains.

Heart sickness: Condition caused by loss of salt from body

Hectic fever: A daily recurring fever with profound sweating, chills, and flushed appearance, often associated with pulmonary tuberculosis or septic poisoning.

Hectical complaint: Recurrent fever

Hematemesis: Vomiting blood

Hematuria: Bloody urine

Hemiplegy: Paralysis of one side of body

Hip gout: Osteomylitis

Hives: A skin eruption of wheals that result from an allergic reaction. Severe allergic reaction can cause death from anaphylactic shock.

Horrors: Delirium tremens

Hospital fever: Typhus

Hydrocephalus: Enlarged head, water on the brain

Hydropericardium: Heart dropsy

Hydrophobia: Rabies

Hydropsy: The full name of dropsy

Hydrothroax: Dropsy in chest

Hypertrophic: Enlargement of organ, like the heart


I
Ichor: Leakage of fluid from a sore or wound.

Impetigo: Contagious skin disease characterized by pustules

Impostume: Abscess

Inanition: Physical condition resulting from lack of food

Infantile Paralysis: Poliomyelitis (polio)

Intermittent Fever: Illness marked by episodes of fever with return to completely normal temperature; usually malaria.

Intestinal colic: Abdominal pain due to improper diet


J
Jail fever: Typhus

Jaundice: Condition caused by blockage of intestines

Jawfaln: Literally a fallen jaw also referred to as a locked jaw. Possibly tetanus.


K
Kakke: Beriberi

King’s evil: Scrofula. Tuberculosis of neck and lymph glands

Kink: Fit of coughing or choking

Kruchhusten: Whooping cough


L
Lagrippe: Influenza

Leprosy: A chronic bacterial disease affecting mainly skin and nerves. If untreated, there can be progressive and permanent damage to the skin, nerves, limbs and eyes

Livergrown: Possibly Rickets. John Graunt (1) observed that Bills or Mortality showing many deaths from Rickets showed few or none Livergrown and vice versa.

Lockjaw: Tetanus, a disease in which the jaws become firmly locked together. Synonyms: trismus, tetanus.

Locomotor Ataxia: Disease of the nervous system which results in inability to walk.

Long Sickness: Tuberculosis

Lues disease: Syphilis

Lues venera: Venereal disease

Lumbago: Back pain

Lung Fever: Pneumonia

Lung Sickness: Tuberculosis

Lying in: Time of delivery of infant


M
Malignant fever: Typhus

Malignant Pustule: Anthrax

Malignant Sore Throat: Diphtheria

Mania: Insanity

Marasmus: Progressive wasting away of body, like malnutrition

Meagrom, Megrim: A severe headache, often limited to one side of the head

Medulla: The marrow in the centre of a long bone. The soft internal portion of glands. Eg. Kidney, lymph nodes, thymus.

Melancholia: Severe depression

Membranous Croup: Diphtheria

Meningitis: Inflations of brain or spinal cord

Mesentery: A large fold of peritoneum, passing between a portion of intestine and the posterior abdominal wall.

Metritis: Inflammation of uterus or purulent vaginal discharge

Miasma: Poisonous vapours thought to infect the air and cause disease

Milk Fever: Short lived fever which sometimes accompanies lactation, probably a staphylococcus infection. Disease from drinking contaminated milk, like undulant fever or brucellosis

Milk Leg: Thrombosis of veins in the thigh usually seen after childbirth. Post partum thrombophlebitis

Milk sickness: Disease from milk of cattle which had eaten poisonous weeds

Morbilli: Measles

Morbus Addisonii: Addison's Disease

Morbus Cordis: Heart disease. A catch-all phrase for death by natural causes when the exact cause was not evident

Mormal: Gangrene

Morphew: Blisters resulting from scurvy. Scurvy blisters on the body

Mortification: Gangrene, necrotic tissue

Myelitis: Inflammation of the spine

Myocarditis: Inflammation of heart muscles


N
Necrosis: The death of tissue. Mortification of bones or tissue

Nephrosis: Kidney degeneration

Nepritis: Inflammation of kidneys

Nervous prostration: Extreme exhaustion from inability to control physical and mental activities

Neuralgia: Described as discomfort, such as "Headache" was neuralgia in head

Nostalgia: Homesickness


O
Oedema: Fluid retention, dropsy

Oriental Boil: See Leishmaniasis


P
Pachyderma: Thickening of the skin

Palsy: Paralysis or difficulty with muscle control. Paralysis or uncontrolled movement of controlled muscles.

Paralysis Agitants: Parkinson's disease

Paroxysm: Convulsion

Pemphigus: Skin disease of watery blisters

Pericarditis: Inflammation of heart

Peripneumonia: Inflammation of lungs

Peritonitis: Inflammation of abdominal area

Pernicious Anaemia: Anaemia caused by vitamin B12 deficiency

Pertussis: Whooping cough

Petechial Fever: Fever characterized by skin spotting

Peurperal exhaustion: Death due to child birth

Phlegmasia Alba Dolens: Thrombosis of veins in the thigh usually seen after childbirth

Phthiriasis: Lice infestation

Phthisis: Tuberculosis. Chronic wasting away or a name for tuberculosis

Pink Disease: Disease of teething infants due to mercury poisoning from teething powders

Plague: Any infectious disease with a high mortality rate, although will often mean bubonic plague. An acute febrile highly infectious disease with a high fatality rate

Planet-struck: Any sudden severe affliction or paralysis

Pleurisie / Pleurisy: Inflammation of the pleura, the membranous sac lining the chest cavity. Symptoms are chills, fever, dry cough, and pain in the affected side. Any pain in the chest area with each breath

Pneumonia: Inflammation of the lungs with congestion or consolidation

Porphyria: Rare metabolic disturbance that may cause mental damage in young children. It produces convulsions and delirium.

Podagra: Gout

Poliomyelitis: PolioPotter's asthma - Fibroid pthisis

Pott's disease: Tuberculosis of the spinal vertebrae

Potter's Asthma: Tuberculosis

Pox: Syphilis

Puerperal Exhaustion: Death due to childbirth

Puerperal Fever: Infection after giving birth to an infant, probably a staphylococcus infection

Puking Fever: Milk sickness

Purples: This is a rash due to spontaneous bleeding in to the skin. It may be a symptom of some severe illnesses, including bacterial endocarditis and cerebrospinal meningitis.

Putrid fever: Typhus. Diphtheria

Putrid sore throat: Ulceration of an acute form, attacking the tonsils

Pyaemia: A condition in which collection of pyogenic bacteria circulate in the blood at intervals producing abscesses wherever they lodge.

Pyelitis: Inflammation of the pelvis of the kidney.

Pyrexia: dysentery.


Q
Quinsy: An acute inflammation of the tonsils, often leading to an abscess. Tonsillitis.


R
Rag-Picker's Disease: Anthrax

Remitting Fever: Malaria

Rheumatism: Any disorder associated with pain in joints

Rickets: Disease of skeletal system mainly due to Vitamin D deficiency

Rising Of The Lights: Generally considered to be croup. However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as hysteria and John Graunt (1) suggests that it may be an inflammation of the liver, similar to livergrown (q.v.)

Rose cold: Hay fever or nasal symptoms of an allergy

Rotanny fever: Child's disease

Rubeola: German measles


S
Sanguineous crust: Scab

Scarlatina: Scarlet fever

Scarlet fever (Scarlet Rash): An infectious fever, characterised by a widespread scarlet eruption. A disease characterized by red rash

Scarlet rash: Roseola

Sciatica: Rheumatism in the hips

Scirrhus: Cancerous tumors

Scotomy: Dizziness, nausea and dimness of sight

Scouring or scowring: Purging of the bowels, probably diarrhoea or dysentery

Screws: Rheumatism

Scrivener's Palsy: Writer's cramp

Scrofula or scrofula fugax: Primary tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, especially those in the neck. A disease of children and young adults, it represents a direct extension of tuberculosis into the skin from underlying lymph nodes. It evolves into cold abscesses, multiple skin ulcers, and draining sinus tracts. Tuberculosis of neck lymph glands. Progresses slowly with abscesses and pustulas develop. Young person's disease. Possibly chicken pox

Scrofula mesenterica: An internal non-pulmonary tuberculosis, resulting in a swollen abdomen, loss of appetite and a pale complexion

Scrofula vulgaris: An itchy rash associated with hospitals. Most probably a streptococcal infection

Scrumpox: Skin disease, impetigo

Scurvy: A disease caused by severe vitamin C deficiency. Symptoms of weakness, spongy gums and hemorrhages under skin

Septicemia: Blood poisoning

Shakes: Delirium tremens

Shaking: Chills, ague

Shingles: Viral disease with skin blisters

Ship fever: Typhus

Siriasis: Inflammation of the brain due to sun exposure

Sloes: Milk sickness

Small Pox: Highly infectious viral disease producing pustules. Contagious disease with fever and blisters

Softening of the Brain: Stroke. Result of stroke or hemorrhage in the brain, with an end result of the tissue softening in that area

Sore Throat Distemper: Diphtheria or quinsy

Spanish Disease: Syphilis

Spanish Influenza: The variant of influenza that was responsible for the 1918 pandemic. Epidemic influenza

Spasms: Sudden involuntary contraction of muscle or group of muscles, like a convulsion

Spina bifida: Deformity of spine

Spotted fever: Meningitis or typhus. Either typhus or meningitis

Sprue: Tropical disease characterized by intestinal disorders and sore throat

St Anthony's Fire: Skin disease caused by toxins from ergot infection. Sometimes used for erysipelas and other diseases producing a reddening of the skin. Also erysipelas, but named so because of affected skin areas are bright red in appearance

St Vitus Dance: Chorea. Ceaseless occurrence of rapid complex jerking movements performed involuntary

Stomatitis: Inflammation of the mouth

Stranger's fever: Yellow fever

Strangery: Rupture

Strangury: Painful urination. It may occur after labour, but is more often the result of disease in the bladder or urethra.

Stuffing: Croup

Sudor anglicus: Sweating sickness

Summer complaint: Diarrhea, usually in infants caused by spoiled milk

Sunstroke: Uncontrolled elevation of body temperature due to environment heat. Lack of sodium in the body is a predisposing cause

Surfet or surfeit: Vomiting from over eating or gluttony

Swamp Sickness: Malaria, typhoid or encephalitis

Sweating Sickness: Infectious and often fatal disease affecting England in the 15th century

Sycosis Barbae: Infection of the hair follicles of the beard area


T
Tabes mesenterica: Tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands in children, resulting in digestive derangement and wasting of the body.

Teeth: Death of an infant when teething. Children appear to have been more susceptible to infection during this time, although malnutrition from being fed watered milk has also been suggested as a cause.

Teething: The entire process which results in the eruption of the teeth. Nineteenth-century medical reports stated that infants were more prone to disease at the time of teething. Symptoms were restlessness, fretfulness, convulsions, diarrhoea, and painful and swollen gums. The latter could be relieved by lancing over the protruding tooth. Often teething was reported as a cause of death in infants. Perhaps they became susceptible to infections, especially if lancing was performed without antisepsis. Another explanation of teething as a cause of death is that infants were often weaned at the time of teething; perhaps they then died from drinking contaminated milk, leading to an infection, or from malnutrition if watered-down milk was given.

Tetanus: An infectious, often-fatal disease characterised by respiratory paralysis and tonic spasms and rigidity of the voluntary muscles, especially those of the neck and lower jaw. The bacterium enters the body through wounds. Infectious fever characterized by high fever, headache and dizziness

Thrombosis: Blood clot inside blood vessel

Thrush: A disease characterised by whitish spots and ulcers on the membranes of the mouth, tongue, and throat caused by a parasitic fungus. Thrush usually affects sick, weak infants and elderly individuals in poor health

Tinea Sycosis: Infection of the hair follicles of the beard area

Tissick: Cough

Toxemia of pregnancy: Eclampsia

Typhoid: Typhoid fever is contracted when people eat food or drink water that has been infected. It is recognized by the sudden onset of sustained fever, severe headache, nausea and severe loss of appetite. It is sometimes accompanied by hoarse cough and constipation or diarrhoea

Tympany: A swelling or tumour

Typhus: An acute, infectious disease transmitted by lice and fleas. Infectious fever characterized high fever, headache, and dizziness

Trench mouth: Painful ulcers found along gum line, Caused by poor nutrition and poor hygiene

Tussis convulsiva: Whooping cough



V

Varicella: Chickenpox

Variola: Smallpox

Venesection: Bleeding

Viper's dance: St. Vitus Dance

Volvulus: Rotation of a section of intestine such as may result from the coiling of one loop of intestine with another. Circulation of the parts is seriously interfered with causing strangulation.


W
Water on brain: Enlarged head

White swelling: Tuberculosis of the bone

Winter fever: Pneumonia

Wolf: A rapidly expanding growth, probably a malignant tumour

Womb fever: Infection of the uterus.

Worm Fit: Convulsions associated with teething, worms, elevated temperature or diarrhoea



Y

Yellow fever: An acute, often-fatal, infectious febrile disease of warm climates—caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes, especially Aledes aegypti, and characterised by liver damage and jaundice, fever, and protein in the urine. In 1900 Walter Reed and others in Panama found that mosquitoes transmit the disease. Clinicians in. the late nineteenth century recognised "specific yellow fever" as being different from "malarious yellow fever." The latter supposedly was a form of malaria with liver involvement but without urine involvement.

Yellowjacket: Yellow fever




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Note:
(1) John Graunt, Citizen of London, published his 'Natural and Political Observations ... made upon the Bills of Mortality' in 1662.

Most of the definitions of diseases in the glossary that follows are from medical dictionaries or medical texts compiled at different points in the nineteenth century. While I have tried to submit the best-possible interpretation of these terms, there are certainly other interpretations which may be valid. I don't guarantee that all definitions are 100% correct.


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Other sources online:

Cyndi's List: http://www.cyndislist.com/medical.htm

Glossary of Archaic Medical Terms: http://www.rootsource.com/disease.htm

World Book Medical Encyclopedia: http://www.s-books.com/wbmedical/

Old Disease Names: http://www.vineyard.net/vineyard/history/allen/old_diseases.html

Archaic Medical Terms: http://www.paul_smith.doctors.org.uk/ArchaicMedicalTerms.htm



Copyright © Sylvain Cazalet 2001

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