An apple a day…
Whatever happened to the old names of infections and illnesses? Do you ever read old novels and wonder what they are talking about? We become more scientific in our use of disease names and thus the change. Here is a little primer to help you translate all those strange infirmities you might come across:
| Bad Blood/French Pox | Syphilis |
| Brain Fever | Meningitis |
| Canine Madness | Rabies |
| Chin Cough | Whopping Cough |
| Consumption | Tuberculosis |
| Decreptitude | Old Age |
| Dropsy | Swelling for Heart or Kidney Disease |
| Domestic Illness | Depression, Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s Disease |
| Dry Bellyache | Lead Poisoning |
| Dyspepsia | Indigestion and heartburn |
| Ectasy | Loss of reasoning |
| Epitaxis | Nose Bleed |
| Falling Sickness | Epilepsy |
| Green Fever | Anemia |
| La Grippe | Flu |
| Lumbago | Back pain |
| Neuralgia | Discomfort |
| Nostalgia | Home Sickness |
| Quinsy | Tonsillitis |
| Screws | Rheumatism |
| Ship Fever or Camp Fever | Typhus |
| St. Vitas Dance | Leg twitching from rheumatic fever |
| Trench Mouth | Ulcers on the gums |
Technorati Tags: diseases, infections
January 19th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
This is an interesting list, particularly since my most recent post on Yesterday’s Memories is about some of the “extinct” medicines and home remedies I remember in times past.
I’d be glad to have you comment on
http://vintage.dirtybutter.com/blog/
January 21st, 2007 at 5:36 pmI remember learning in school that Edgar Allen Poe’s wife and mother both died of “the consumption”
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:23 pm