OBSOLETE MEDICAL TERMS

AGUE - Used to describe recurring fever and chills of malaria; can mean any fever with chills
APHONIA - Laryngitis
BILIOUSNESS - Jaundice or other symptoms associated with liver disease
BLOODY FLUX - Dysentery (bloody diarrhea); etiolgy depends on area; shigella; salmonella; amoeba; typhoid; typus; etc.
BRAIN FEVER - Meningitis, encephalitis
CAMP FEVER - Typhus
CANINE MADNESS - Hydrophobia (rabies)
CHLOROSIS - Iron deficiency anemia
CHOLERA INFANTUM Summer diarrhea of infants usually the first summer after weaning from breast feeding
CORRUPTION - Infection
CORYZA - A cold
COSTIVENESS - Constipation
CRAMP COLIC - Appendicitis
CREEPING PARALYSIS - Tabes dorsalis (syphilis)
DENTITION - Infantile convulsions; bebrile seizures; ?infected dental caries (cavities); ?mercury poisoning from teething powders
DEBILITY - "Failure to thrive" in infancy or old age or loss of appetite and weight from undiagnosed T.B. or cancer.
DROPSY - Edema (swelling), sometimes caused by kidney or heart disease.
DYSPEPSIA - Acid indigestion
ECLAMPSIA - Convlusions of any cause; later applied more specific
EXTRAVASTED BLOOD - Rupture of blood vessel
FALLING SICKNESS - Epilepsy
FLUS OF HUMOUR - Circulation
FRENCH POX - Venereal disease
GALLOPING CONSUMPTION - Rapidly progressing tuberculosis
GREEN SICKNESS - Anemia
HEMORRHAGE AND INFLAMMATION - Ruptured aneurysmm or swollen lymph nodes or superficial cancer with ulceration and bleeding; swollen lymph nodes from chronic infection, such as T. B., brucella, anthrax, staphylococcus, etc.
HIP GOUT - Osteomyelitis
JAIL FEVER - Typhus
KING'S EVIL - Scrofula (T.B. of lymph glands, especially of neck)
LUES VENERA - Venereal disease
LUMBAGO - Back pain
LUNG FEVER - Pneumonia
LUNG SICKNESS - Tuberculosis
MALIGNANT FEVER - Fever with hemolysis; malaria with hemmorrhagic skin rash; meningoccoccal infection; putrid malignant fever; typhoid.
MANIA - Insanity
MARASMUS & DROPSY OF THE BRAIN - Hydrocephalus and wasting of the body
MILK LEG - Thrombosis in femoral vein, often after childbirth; death from pulmonary embolism or pelvic infection (usual cause for milk leg)
MORTIFICATION - Gangrene usually of the leg; trauma; infection; diabetes; aneurysm of aorta
NOSTALGIA - Homesickness
A PERIPNEUMONY - Pneumonia plus pleurisy (inflammation of the pleura usually with fever, painful & difficult respiration, cough and fluid into the pleural cavity)
PUTRID FEVER - Diptheria
PUTRID SORE THROAT - Gangrenous pharyngitis; tonsillitis with peritonsillar or retropharyngeal abscess.
QUINSY - Tonsillitis
REMITTING FEVER - Malaria
ROSE COLD - Hay fever incorrectly thought to be caused by rose pollen.
SANGUINOUS CRUST - Scab
SCREWS - Rheumatism
SCROFULA - See KING'S EVIL
SHIP'S FEVER - Typhus
SOFTENING OF THE BRAIN - Dementia (Syphilitic or non-syphilitic); cerebral hemorrhage; stroke
STOMACH TROUBLE - Complication of gastric ulcer perforation plus pancreatitis, hemorrhage, cancer.
STRANGERY - Rupture
SUMMER COMPLAINT - Diarrhea and vomiting; gastroenteritis
THROAT DISTEMPER - Tonsillitis; diptheria
VENESECTION - Bleeding

This page was created by Sharon Wick 2003