Often in genealogy a researcher encounters an archaic
medical term used for the cause of death, or perhaps in a journal or family
correspondence, this list is intended to aid with interpreting those terms.
Abasia - Inability to walk or stand, caused by hysteria.
Ablepsy - Blindness, also Ablepsia, Abopsia.
Abscess - A localized collection of pus buried in tissues,
organs, or confined spaces of the body, often accompanied by swelling
and inflammation and frequently caused by bacteria. The brain, lung,
or kidney (for instance) could be involved. See boil.
Accouchment - childbirth, the period after childbirth.
Acute - (adj.) disease of sudden onset, severe, not chronic.
Addison's disease - A disease characterized 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.
Aegrotat - Is sick from.
Aegrotantem - Sickness, illness.
Ague - Malarial Fever; Malarial or intermittent fever
characterized 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.
American plague - Yellow fever.
Anasarca - Generalized massive edema. see dropsy.
Anchylosis/ankylosis - Abnormal stiffening and immobility of a
joint by fusion of the bones.
Angina - Pain in chest brought on by exertion; intense
constricting pain especially of the throat, can lead to suffocation;
quinsy.
Aphonia - Laryngitis.
Aphtha/aphthae - see thrush.
Aphthous stomatitis - see canker.
Apoplexy - Paralysis due to stroke.
Ascites - see dropsy.
Asphycsia/Asphicsia - Cyanotic and lack of oxygen.
Asthenia - see debility.
Atrophy - Wasting away or diminishing in size.
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Bad Blood - Syphilis.
Bilious fever - A term loosely applied to certain enteric
(intestinal) and malarial fevers; Typhoid, malaria, hepatitis or elevated
temperature and bile emesis /fever due to a liver disorder, See typhus.
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 plague/death - Bubonic plague.
Black fever - Acute infection with high temperature and dark red skin
lesions and high mortality rate.
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.
Bladder in throat - Diphtheria.
Blood poisoning - Bacterial infection; septicemia.
Bloody flux - Bloody stools; dysentry.
Bloody sweat - Sweating sickness.
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.
Bone shave - Sciatica.
Brain fever - see meningitis, typhus.
Breakbone - Dengue fever.
Bright's disease - Chronic inflammatory disease of kidneys; kiddney
disease; glomerulonephritis.
Bronchial asthma - A paroxysmal, often allergic disorder of
breathing, characterized by spasm of the bronchial tubes of the lungs,
wheezing, and difficulty in breathing air outward, often accompanied by
coughing and a feeling of tightness in the chest.
Bronze John - Yellow fever.
Brucellosis - bacterial disease, especially of cattle, causing
undulant fever in humans.
Bule - Boil, tumor or swelling
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Cachexy - Malnutrition.
Cacogastric - Upset stomach.
Cacospysy - Irregular pulse.
Caduceus - Subject to falling sickness or epilepsy.
Camp fever - Typhus; aka Camp diarrhea, typhoid fever.
Cancer - A malignant and invasive growth or tumor (especially
tissue that covers a surface or lines a cavity), tending to recur after
excision and to spread to other sites. In the nineteenth century,
physicians noted that cancerous tumors tended to ulcerate, grew
constantly, and progressed to a fatal end and that there was scarcely a
tissue they would not invade. Synonyms: malignant growth, carcinoma.
Cancrum otis - 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 - An ulcerous sore of the mouth and lips, not considered
fatal today; herpes simplex Synonym: aphthous stomatitis. See cancrum
otis.
Catalepsy - Condition which causes Seizures/trances or
unconsciousness.
Catarrh - Inflammation of a mucous membrane, especially of the
air passages of the head and throat, with a free discharge. It is
characterized 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. Nose and throat discharge from cold
or allergy; influenza.
Cerebritis - Inflammation of cerebrum or lead poisoning.
Chilblain - Swelling of extremities caused by exposure to cold
and then heat; extremities turn black and itch unbearably.
Childbed - Childbirth.
Child bed fever - Infection following birth of a child; puerperal
fever.
Childbirth - A cause given for many female deaths of the century.
Almost all babies were born in homes and usually were delivered by a
family member or a midwife; thus infection and lack of medical skill
were often the actual causes of death.
Chin cough - Whooping cough.
Chlorosis - Iron deficiency anemia; condition of pale or greenish
skin, weakness, & dyspepsia.
Cholecystitis - Inflammation of the gall bladder.
Cholelithiasis - Stones of the gall bladder.
Cholera - An acute, infectious disease, endemic in India and
China and now occasionally epidemic elsewhere: characterized by profuse
diarrhea, vomiting, and cramps. It is caused by a potent toxin
discharged by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae, which acts on the small
intestine to cause secretion of large amounts of fluid. The painless,
watery diarrhea and the passing of rice-water stool are characteristic.
Great body-salt depletion occurs. Cholera is spread by
feces-contaminated water and food. Major epidemics struck the United
States in the years 1832, 1849, and 1866. In the 1830s the causes were
generally thought to be intemperance in the use of ardent spirits or
drinking bad water; uncleanness, poor living or crowded and
ill-ventilated dwellings; and too much fatigue. By 1850 cholera was
thought to be caused by putrid animal poison and miasma or pestilential
vapor rising from swamps and marshes, or that it entered the body
through the lungs or was transmitted through the medium of clothing. It
was still believed that it attacked the poor, the dissolute, the
diseased, and the fearful, while the healthy, well-clad, well-fed, and
fearless man escaped the ravages of cholera.
Cholera infantum - A common, noncontagious diarrhea of young
children, occurring in summer or autumn. In the nineteenth century it
was considered indigenous to the United States; was prevalent during the
hot weather in most of the towns of the middle and southern states, as
well as many western areas; and was characterized by gastric pain,
vomiting, purgation, fever, and prostration. It was common among the
poor and in hand-fed babies. Death frequently occurred in three to five
days. Synonyms: summer complaint, weaning brash, water gripes, choleric
fever of children, cholera morbus.
Cholera morbus - Characterized by nausea, vomiting, abdominal
cramps, elevated temperature, etc. Could be appendicitis
Chorea - Any of several diseases of the nervous system,
characterized by jerky movements that appear to be well co-ordinated but
are performed involuntarily, chiefly of the face and extremities;
convulsions, contortions and dancing. Synonym: Saint Vitus' dance.
Chronic - Persisting over a long period of time as opposed to
acute or sudden. This word was often the only one entered under
"cause of death" in the mortality schedules. The actual
disease meant by the term is open to speculation.
Cold plague - Ague which is characterized by chills.
Colic - Paroxysmal pain in the abdomen or bowels. Infantile colic
is benign paroxysmal abdominal pain during the first three months of
life. Colic rarely caused death; but in the last century a study
reported that in cases of death, intussusception (the prolapse of one
part of the intestine into the lumen of an immediately adjoining part)
occasionally occurred. Renal colic can occur from disease in the kidney,
gallstone colic from a stone in the bile duct.
Congestive chills - Malaria.
Congestion - An excessive or abnormal accumulation of blood or
other fluid in a body part, blood vessel or an organ, like the lungs
Congestive chills. Malaria with diarrhea.
Congestive fever - Malaria Corruption Infection.
Consumption - 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 19th century), phthisis.
Convulsions - Severe contortion of the body caused by violent,
involuntary muscular contractions of the extremities, trunk, and head.
See epilepsy.
Coryza - A cold. see catarrh.
Costiveness - Constipation.
Cramp colic - Appendicitis.
Crop sickness - Overextended stomach.
Croup - Any obstructive condition of the larynx (voice box) or
trachea (windpipe), characterized by a hoarse, barking cough and
difficult breathing occurring chiefly in infants and children. The
obstruction could be caused by allergy, a foreign body, infection, or
new growth (tumor). In the early 19th century it was called cynanche
trachealis. The crouping noise was similar to the sound emitted by a
chicken affected with the pip, which in some parts of Scotland was
called roup; hence, probably, the term croup; Laryngitis, diphtheria, or
strep throat; a childhood illness. Synonyms: roup, hives, choak,
stuffing, rising of the lights.
Cyanosis - Dark skin color; blueness of skin caused by lack of
oxygen in blood.
Cynanche - Diseases of throat.
Cystitis - Inflammation of the bladder.
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Day fever - Fever lasting one day; sweating sickness.
Debility - Abnormal bodily weakness or feebleness; decay of strength.
This was a term descriptive of a patient's condition and of no help in
making a diagnosis. Lack of movement or staying in bed. Synonym: asthenia.
Decrepitude - Feebleness due to old age.
Delirium tremens - aka DTs; hallucination due to alcoholism.
Dengue - Infectious fever endemic to East Africa.
Dentition - Cutting of teeth, see teething.
Deplumation - Tumor of the eyelids which causes hair loss.
Diary fever - A fever that lasts one day.
Diptheria - An acute infectious disease caused by toxigenic strains
of the bacillus Corynebacterium diphtheriae, acquired by contact with an
infected person or a carrier of the disease. It was usually confined to the
upper respiratory tract (throat) and characterized by the formation of a
tough membrane (false membrane) attached firmly to the underlying tissue
that would bleed if forcibly removed. In the nineteenth century the disease
was occasionally confused with scarlet fever and croup.
Distemper - Usually animal disease with malaise, discharge from nose
and throat, anorexia.
Dock fever - Yellow fever.
Dropsy - A contraction for hydropsy. Edema, the presence of
abnormally large amounts of fluid in intercellular tissue spaces or body
cavities. Abdominal dropsy is ascites; brain dropsy is hydrocephalus; and
chest dropsy is hydrothorax. Cardiac dropsy is a symptom of disease of the
heart and arises from obstruction to the current of blood through the heart,
lungs, or liver. Anasarca is general fluid accumulation throughout the
body.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 intestines (especially of the colon) and attended by
pain in the abdomen, by tenesmus (straining to defecate without the ability
to do so), and by frequent stools containing blood and mucus. The causative
agent may be chemical irritants, bacteria, protozoa, or parasitic worms.
There are two specific varieties: (1) amebic dysentery caused by the
protozoan Entamoeba histolytica; (2) bacillary dysentery caused by bacteria
of the genus Shigella. Dysentery was one of the most severe scourges of
armies in the nineteenth century. The several forms of dysentery and
diarrhea accounted for more than one-fourth of all the cases of disease
reported during the first two years of the Civil War. Synonyms: flux, bloody
flux, contagious pyrexia (fever), frequent griping stools.
Dysorexy - Reduced appetite.
Dyspepsia - Indigestion and heartburn. Heart attack symptoms; bad
digestion.
Dysury - Difficulty in urination
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Eclampsy - A form of toxemia (toxins, or poisons, in the blood)
accompanying pregnancy, characterized by albuminuria (protein in the urine),
by hypertension (high blood pressure), and by convulsions. In the last
century, the term was used for any form of convulsion.
Ecstasy - A form of catalepsy characterixed by loss of reason.
Edema - Nephrosis; swelling of tissues. see Dropsy.
Edema of lungs - Congestive heart failure, a form of dropsy.
Eel thing - Erysipelas.
Effluvia - Exhalations or emanations, applied especially to those of
noxious character. In the mid-nineteenth century, they were called "vapours"
and distinguished into the contagious effluvia, such as rubeolar (measles);
marsh effluvia, such as miasmata; and those arising from animals or
vegetables, such as odors.
Elephantiasis - Gross enlargement of the body, especially the limbs,
due to lymphatic obstruction by a nematode parasite transmitted by
mosquitoes; a form of leprosy.
Emphysema, pulmonary - A chronic, irreversible disease of the lungs,
characterized by abnormal enlargement of air spaces in the lungs and
accompanied by destruction of the tissue lining the walls of the air sacs.
By 1900 the condition was recognized as a chronic disease of the lungs
associated with marked dyspnea (shortness of breath), hacking cough,
defective aeration (oxygenation) of the blood, cyanosis (blue color of
facial skin), and a full and rounded or "barrel-shaped" chest.
This disease is now most commonly associated with tobacco smoking.
Encephalitis - Swelling of brain; aka sleeping sickness.
Enteric fever - see Typhoid fever.
Enterocolitis - Inflammation of the intestines.
Enteritis - Inflations of the bowels.
Epilepsy - A disorder of the nervous system, characterized either by
mild, episodic loss of attention or sleepiness (petittnal) or by severe
convulsions with loss of consciousness (grand mal). Synonyms: falling
sickness, fits.
Epitaxis - Nose bleed.
Erysipelas - An acute, febrile, infectious disease, caused by a
specific group of streptococcus bacterium and characterized by a diffusely
spreading, deep-red inflammation of the skin or mucous membranes causing a
rash with a well-defined margin; Contagious skin disease, due to infection
of the blood with vesicular bulbous lesions. Synonyms: Rose, Saint Anthony's
Fire.
Extravasted blood - Rupture of a blood vessel.
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Falling sickness - see Epilepsy.
Fatty Liver - Cirrhosis of liver.
Fits - Sudden attack or seizure of muscle activity.
Flux - An excessive flow or discharge of fluid like hemorrhage or
diarrhea. see dysentry.
Flux of humour - Circulation.
French pox - Syphilis.
Furuncle - see boil.
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Gangrene - Death and decay of tissue in a part of the body,
usually a limb, due to injury, disease, or failure of blood supply. Synonym:
mortification.
Gathering - A collection of pus.
Glandular fever - Mononucleosis (mono).
Gleet - see catarrh.
Goitre - Enlarged thyroid gland which affects body's metabolism.
Gout - Chronic metabolic disorder affecting the joints, associated
with hypertension, uric acid in the blood and kidney disease, often
associated with a rich and fatty diet (and red wine).
Gravel - A disease characterized by multiple small calculi (stones or
concretions of mineral salts) which are formed in the kidneys, passed along
the ureters to the bladder, and expelled with the urine. Synonym: kidney
stone.
Grave's disease - Thryotoxicosis.
Great pox - Syphilis.
Green fever/sickness - Anemia.
Grippe/grip - Influenza like symptoms; the flu; influenza.
Grocer's itch - Skin disease caused by mites in sugar or flour.
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Heart sickness - Condition caused by loss of salt from body.
Heat stroke - Body temperature elevates because of surrounding
environment temperature and body does not perspire to reduce
temperature. Coma and death result if not reversed.
Hectical complaint - A daily recurring fever with profound
sweating, chills, and flushed Hectic Fever appearance, often associated
with pulmonary tuberculosis or septic poisoning.
Hematemesis - Vomiting blood.
Hematuria - Bloody urine.
Hemiplegy - Paralysis of one side of body.
Hip gout - Osteomylitis.
Hives - A skin eruption of weals (smooth, slightly elevated areas
on the skin) which is redder or paler than the surrounding skin. Often
attended by severe itching, it usually changes its size or shape or
disappears within a few hours. It is the dermal evidence of allergy. See
the discussion under croup; also called cynanche trachealis. In the
mid-nineteenth century, hives was a commonly given cause of death of
children three years and under. Because true hives does not kill, croup
was probably the actual cause of death in those children.
Horrors - Delirium tremens.
Hospital Fever - see typhus.
Hydrocephalus - Enlarged head, water on the brain; dropsy of the
brain. see dropsy.
Hydropericardium - Heart dropsy.
Hydrophobia - Rabies; fear of water.
Hydrothroax - Dropsy in the chest. see dropsy.
Hypertrophic - Enlargement of organ, like the heart.
Hypertropy of heart - Enlarged heart.
Hysteria - Wild uncontrollable emotion, excitement, functional
dusturbance of the nervous system.
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Icterus - see jaundice.
Impetigo - Contagious skin disease charac terized by pustules.
Inanition - Exhaustion from lack of nourishment; starvation. A
condition characterized by marked weakness, extreme weight loss, and a
decrease in metabolism resulting from severe and prolonged (usually weeks to
months) insufficiency of food.
Infantile paralysis - Polio.
Infection - The affection or contamination of a person, organ, or
wound with invading, multiplying, disease-producing germs (such as bacteria,
rickettsiae, viruses, molds, yeasts, and protozoa). In the early part of the
last century, infections were thought to be the propagation of disease by
effluvia (see above) from patients crowded together. "Miasms" were
believed to be substances which could not be seen in any form, emanations
not apparent to the senses. Such miasms were understood to act by infection.
Inflammation - Redness, swelling, pain, tenderness, heat, and
disturbed function of an area of the body, especially as a reaction of
tissue to injurious agents. This mechanism serves as a localized and
protective response to injury. The word ending -itis denotes inflammation on
the part indicated by the word stem to which it is attached, as in:
appendicitis, pleuritis, etc. Microscopically, it involves a complex series
of events, including enlargement of the sizes of blood vessels; discharge of
fluids, including plasma proteins; and migration of leukocytes (white blood
cells) into the inflammatory focus. In the last century, cause of death
often was listed as inflammation of a body organ, such as brain or lung, but
this was purely a descriptive term and is not helpful in identifying the
actual underlying disease.
Intestinal colic - Abdominal pain due to bad or improper diet.
Intussusception - The slipping of one part within another, as the
prolapse of one part of the intestine into the lumen of an immediately
adjoining part. This leads to obstruction and often must be relieved by
surgery. Synonym: introsusception
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Jail fever - see typhus.
Jaundice - Yellow discoloration of the skin, whites of the eyes, and
mucous membranes, due to an increase of bile pigments in the blood - often
symptomatic of certain diseases, such as hepatitis, obstruction of the bile
duct, or cancer of the liver; Condition caused by blockage of intestines
(common in newborn babies) Synonym: icterus.
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Kidney Stone - see gravel.
King's evil - A popular name for scrofula. The name originated in the
time of Edward the Confessor, with the belief that the disease could be
cured by the touch of the king of England. Tuberculosis of neck and lymph
glands.
Kruchhusten - Whooping cough.
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Lagrippe - Influenza.
Lockjaw - Tetanus, an infectious disease affecting the muscles of the
neck and jaw in which the jaw beomes firmlt locked. Untreated, it is fatal
in 8 days. Synonyms: trismus, tetanus.
Lues disease - Syphilis.
Lues venera - Venereal disease; sexually transmitted disease (STD).
Lumbago - Back pain.
Lung fever - Pneumonia.
Lung sickness - Tuberculosis.
Lying in - Time of delivery of infant.
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Malignant Fever - see typhus.
Malignant sore throat - see Diphtheria.
Mania - Insanity.
Marasmus - Malnutrition occurring in infants and young children,
caused by an insufficient intake of calories or protein and characterized by
thinness, dry skin, poor muscle development, and irritability. In the
mid-nineteenth century, specific causes were associated with specific ages:
In infants under twelve months old, the causes were believed to be
unsuitable food, chronic vomiting, chronic diarrhea, and inherited syphilis.
Between one and three years, marasmus was associated with rickets or cancer.
After the age of three years, caseous (cheeselike) enlargement of the
mesenteric glands (located in the peritoneal fold attaching the small
intestine to the body wall) became a given cause of wasting. (See tabes
mesenterica.) After the sixth year, chronic pulmonary tuberculosis appeared
to be the major cause. Marasmus is now considered to be related to
kwashiorkor, a severe protein deficiency.
Membranous Croup - Diphtheria.
Meningitis - Inflammation of the meninges (the three membranes
covering the brain and spinal cord), especially of the pia mater and
arachnoid, caused by a bacterial or viral infection and characterized high
fever, severe headache, and stiff neck or back muscles. Synonym: brain
fever.
Metritis - Inflammation of uterus or purulent vaginal discharge.
Miasma - Poisonous vapors thought to infect the air.
Milk fever - Disease from drinking contaminated milk; fever which
effects lactating women (mastitis?).
Milk leg - Post partum thrombophlebitis.
Milk sickness - Disease from milk of cattle which had eaten poisonous
weeds.
Morbus - Latin word for disease. In the last century, when applied to
a particular disease, morbus was associated with some qualifying adjective
or noun, indicating the nature or seat of such disease. Examples: morbus
cordis, heart disease; morbus caducus, epilepsy or failing sickness.
Mormal - Gangrene.
Morphew Scurvy - Blisters on the body.
Mortification - Gangrene of necrotic tissue.
Myelitis - Inflammation of the spine.
Myocarditis - Inflammation of heart muscles.
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Necrosis - 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 - Sharp and paroxysmal pain along the course of a
sensory nerve. There are many causes: anemia, diabetes, gout, malaria,
syphilis. Many varieties of neuralgia are distinguished according to the
part affected, such as face, arm, leg.
Nostalgia - Homesickness.
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Palsy - Paralysis or uncontrolled movement of controlled muscles;
loss of muscle control.
Paristhmitis - see quinsy.
Paroxysm - Convulsion.
Pemphigus - Skin disease of watery blisters.
Pericarditis - Inflammation of heart.
Peripneumonia - Inflammation of lungs.
Peritonotis - Inflammation of abdominal area.
Petechial Fever - Fever characterized by spotting of the skin. see
typhus.
Phthiriasis - Lice infestation.
Phthisis - Chronic wasting away due to ,or a name for, tuberculosis
or consumption. see consumption.
Plague - An acute febrile highly infectious disease with a high
fatality rate.
Pleurisy - Inflammation of the pleura, the membranous sac lining the
chest cavity, with or without fluid collected in the pleural cavity.
Symptoms are chills, fever, dry cough, and pain in the affected side (a
stitch).
Pneumonia - Inflammation of the lungs with congestion or
consolidation, caused by viruses, bacteria, or physical and chemical agents.
Podagra - Gout.
Poliomyelitis - Polio.
Potter's asthma - Fibroid pthisis.
Pott's disease - Tuberculosis of spine.
Puerperal exhaustion - Death due to child birth.
Puerperal fever - Elevated temperature after giving birth to an
infant; septic poisoning associated with child birth.
Puking fever - Milk sickness.
Pus - A yellow-white, more or less viscid substance found in
abscesses and sores, consisting of a liquid plasma in which white blood
cells are formed and suspended by the process of inflammation.
Putrid fever - Diphtheria; typhus. see typhus.
Putrid sore throat - Ulceration of an acute form, attacking the
tonsils and rapidly running into sloughing of the fauces (the cavity at the
back of the mouth, leading to the pharynx).
Pyrexia - see dysentry.
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Quinsy - (streptococcal) Tonsillitis; A fever, or a febrile
condition. An acute inflammation of the tonsils, often leading to an
abscess; peritonsillar abscess. Synonyms: suppurative tonsillitis, cynanche
tonsillaris, paristhmitis, sore throat.
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Remitting fever - Malaria.
Rheumatism - Any disorder associated with pain in joints.
Rickets - Disease of skeletal system caused by vitamin D deficiency.
Rose cold - Hay fever or nasal symptoms of an allergy.
Rotanny fever - (Child's disease) ???
Rubeola - German measles.
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Sanguineous crust - Scab.
Scarlatina - Scarlet fever. A contagious febrile disease, caused
by infection with the bacteria group. A beta-hemolytic streptococci
(which elaborate a toxin with an affinity for red blood cells) and
characterized by a scarlet eruption, tonsillitis, and pharyngitis.
Scarlet fever - A disease characterized by red rash. see
Scarlatina.
Scarlet rash - Roseola.
Sciatica - Rheumatism in the hips.
Scirrhus - Cancerous tumors.
Scotomy - Dizziness, nausea and dimness of sight.
Scrivener's palsy - Writer's cramp.
Screws - Rheumatism.
Scrofula - 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. Synonym: king's evil.
Scrumpox - Skin disease, impetigo.
Scurvy - Lack of vitamin C. Symptoms of weakness, spongy gums and
hemorrhages under skin.
Septic - Infected, a condition of local or generalized invasion
of the body by disease-causing microorganisms (germs) or their toxins.
Septicemia - Blood poisoning.
Shakes - Delirium tremens.
Shaking - Chills, ague.
Shingles - Viral disease characterized by skin blisters (closely
related to chickenpox - cannot get shingles unless previously affected
by chickenpox. often brought on by stress. most commonly the blisteres
develope on the back - extremely itching),
Ship fever - see Typhus.
Siriasis - Inflammation of the brain due to sun exposure.
Sloes - Milk sickness.
Small pox - Contagious disease characterized by fever and
blisters.
Softening of brain - Result of stroke or hemorrhage in the brain,
with an end result of the tissue softening in that area; apoplexy.
Sore throat distemper - Diphtheria or quinsy.
Spanish influenza - An epidemic influenza.
Spasms - Sudden involuntary contraction of muscle or group of
muscles, like a convulsion.
Spina bifida - Deformity of spine.
Spotted fever - Either typhus or meningitis; cerebrospinal
meningitis fever. see Typhus.
Sprue - Tropical disease characterized by intestinal disorders
and sore throat.
St. Anthony's fire - Also erysipelas, but named so because of
affected skin areas are bright red in appearance.
St. Vitus' dance - Ceaseless occurrence of rapid complex jerking
movements performed involuntarily. see chorea.
Stomatitis - Inflammation of the mouth.
Stranger's fever - Yellow fever.
Strangery - Rupture.
Sudor anglicus - Sweating sickness.
Suffocation - The stoppage of respiration. In the nineteenth
century, suffocation was reported as being accidental or homicidal. The
accidents could be by the impaction of pieces of food or other obstacles
in the pharynx or by the entry of foreign bodies into the larynx (as a
seed, coin, or food). Suffocation of newborn children by smothering
under bedclothes may have happened from carelessness as well as from
intent. However, the deaths also could have been due to SIDS (sudden
infant death syndrome), wherein the sudden and unexpected death of an
apparently healthy infant, while asleep, typically occurs between the
ages of three weeks and five months and is not explained by careful
postmortem studies. Synonyms of SIDS: crib death and cot death. It was
felt that victims of homicidal suffocation were chiefly infants or
feeble and infirm persons.
Summer complaint - Diarrhea, usually in infants caused by spoiled
milk. see Cholera infantum.
Sunstroke - Uncontrolled elevation of body temperature due to
environment heat. Lack of sodium in the body is a predisposing cause.
Suppuration - The production of pus.
Swamp sickness - Could be malaria, typhoid or encephalitis.
Sweating sickness - Infectious and fatal disease common to UK in
15th century.
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Tabes mesenterica - Tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands in
children, resulting in digestive derangement and wasting of the body.
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, diarrhea, 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 caused by a specific
bacterium, Clostridium tetani, that enters the body through wounds;
characterized by respiratory paralysis, high fever, and tonic spasms and
rigidity of the voluntary muscles, especially those of the neck and lower
jaw. Synonyms: trismus, lockjaw.
Thrombosis - Blood clot inside blood vessel.
Thrush - A disease characterized by whitish spots and ulcers on the
membranes of the mouth, tongue, and fauces caused by a parasitic fungus,
Candida albicans. Thrush usually affects sick, weak infants and elderly
individuals in poor health. Now it is a common complication from excessive
use of broad-spectrum antibiotics or cortisone treatment. Synonyms: aphthae,
sore mouth, aphthous stomatitis.
Thyrotoxicosis - A disease affecting the thyroid gland.
Tick fever - Rocky mountain spotted fever.
Toxemia (of pregnancy) - see Eclampsia.
Trench mouth - Painful ulcers found along gum line, caused by poor
nutrition and poor hygiene.
Trismus nascentium/neonatorum - A form of tetanus seen only in
infants, almost invariably in the first five days of life, probably due to
infection of the umbilical stump.
Tussis convulsiva - Whooping cough.
Typhoid fever - An infectious, often-fatal, febrile disease, usually
occurring in the summer months, characterized by intestinal inflammation and
ulceration caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi, which is usually
introduced by food or drink. Symptoms include prolonged hectic fever,
malaise, transient characteristic skin rash (rose spots), abdominal pain,
enlarged spleen, slowness of heart rate, delirium, and low white-blood cell
count. The name came from the disease's similarity to typhus (see below).
Synonym: enteric fever.
Typhus - An acute, infectious disease caused by several
micro-organism species of Rickettsia (transmitted by lice and fleas) and
characterized by acute prostration, high fever, depression, delirium,
headache, and a peculiar eruption of reddish spots on the body. The epidemic
or classic form is louse borne; the endemic or murine is flea borne.
Synonyms: typhus fever, malignant fever (in the 1850s), jail fever, hospital
fever, ship fever, putrid fever, brain fever, bilious fever, spotted fever,
petechial fever, camp fever.
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Undulant Fever - Intermittant fever caused by brucellosis. also
called abortus fever.
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Variola - Smallpox.
Venesection - Bleeding.
Viper's dance - St. Vitus' Dance.
Virus - An ultramicroscopic, metabolically inert infectious agent
that replicates only within the cells of living hosts, mainly bacteria,
plants, and animals. In the early 1800s virus meant poison, venom, or
contagion.
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Water on brain - Enlarged head.
White swelling - Tuberculosis of the bone.
Winter fever - Pneumonia.
Womb fever - Infection of the uterus.
Worm fit - Convulsions associated with teething, worms, elevated
temperature or diarrhea.
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Yellow fever - An acute, often-fatal, infectious febrile disease
of warm climates, caused by a virus transmitted by mosquitoes, especially
Aledes aegypti, and characterized 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
recognized "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. See epidemics for major
outbreaks.
Yellowjacket - Yellow fever.
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