A collection of some of these terms and their meanings are included below. If you have additions or corrections to share, please send them to me via my email at the bottom of the page and I will add them to the list.
Ague: fever
Air-swelling: tympanities, air or gas in the intestines
Anchylosis: stiff joints
Anidrosis: too little perspiration
Anthrax: disease that has a painful primary lesion
Apoplexy: stroke
Arachnitis: inflamation of the brain
Barber's Itch: ring-worm of the beard
Bilious Colic: severe stomach pain
Bloody Flux or Dysentery: colitis
Brights Disease of the kidneys: albumen in the urine
Bronchorrhea: bronchial flue
Brown Tail Rash: an irritating skin rash caused by small hairs shed by the gypsy moth that are carried by the wind and lodge in the pores of the skin
Blue Disease: cyanosis, recognized by a blue tinge over the whole body; body warmth is reduced, hampering breathing; usually fatal.
Brain Fever: intense headache, fever, vertigo, intolerance to light or sound; migraine headache
Bronze John: see: yellow fever
Cabled up: refers to someone that is crippled from old age or disease
Chilbains: painful sore or swelling on the foot or hand caused by exposure to the cold
Child-Bed Fever: septicaemia, blood poisoning during pregnancy
Cholera: a bacterial disease usually spread through contaminated water. Cholera causes severe diarrhea and dehydration. Left untreated, cholera can be fatal in a matter of hours, even in previously healthy people.
Clap: gonorrhea
Consumption: tuberculosis of the lungs
Costiveness: constipation
Crusted Tetter: impetigo
Devonshire Colic: also known as Painters colic, a type of colic associated with slow lead poisoning
Dropsy: edema, a collection of water in a large cavity
Dropsy of the Brain: abnormal increase of fluid in the brain
Dry Belly-Ache: same as Devonshire Colic
Erysipelas: infectious disease with inflammation of the skin, accompanied by fever
Egyptian Chlorosis: hookworm
False Measles: same as Rose Rash
Flatulent Colic: same as Wind Colic
Fits: convulsions
Green Sickness: chlorosis, a green tinge in skin of a young girl in puberty
Indican in the Urine: poisonous material being returned to the system
Infantile Debility: same as marasmus
Infantile Spinal Paralysis: polio Idrosis: greatly increased perspiration
King's Evil: scrofula, swelling of the neck glands, tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands
Lagrippe: a form of influenza
Lead Palsy: result of Painter's colic, leaves muscles of forearms palsied.
Lumbago: rheumatic pain in the back
Lung Fever: pneumonia
Marasmus: infantile debility, child is unable to absorb nutrition from food
Milk Crust: small red, itchy pimples on the face or scalp of infants or children which burst and seeps a sticky fluid forming a yellow crust
Milk Leg: phlebitis or inflammation in the leg beginning two to seven weeks after giving birth
Milk Sickness: also known as trembles; contracted by eating a plant which grows in level, heavily-timbered, wet oak-land (mainly in the West), or by eating meat wherein the animal has grazed upon such plants. Symptoms are nausea, vomiting, general debility, peculiar odor to the breath
Mother's Marks: dilation of minute blood-vessels, varying in size, the smallest being the "spider mark"
Mortification: complete death of a part of the body changing it to a black, stinking mass; gangrene
Osmidrosis: perspiration with a peculiar smell
Painter's Colic: also known as Devonshire Colic
Palsy: paralysis to a body part Pellagra: a vitamin deficiency
Pessary: a device worn to change the angle of or give support to a displaced uterus
Phisic/Physic: administer medicine to; "also indicated that a power cathartic had been administered. Dr. Rush of Philadelphia was famous for his powerful physics, as they believed that the humors could only be balanced by ridding the body of it's poisons. So, if you were sick, you could expect to be given a powerful laxative and to have vomiting induced as well" per Jon Ridge at JNCRIDGE@aol.com
Phlebitis: tenderness or hardness of an infected vein
Piles: hemorrhoids
Podagra: gout involving the MP joint of the big toe
Pox: syphilis
Purple Disease: rash of small spots on body, bright red which changes to a purple or dark-red irregular patch
Putrid Fever: same as Typhus Fever
Pyemia: a form of blood poisoning from pus in the blood
Rose-Rash: false measles, or roseola
Rheumatism: inflammation of the joints
Saint Vitus's Dance: nervous disorder which creates involuntary muscular contractions
Sciatica: painful nerve in hip or thigh
Scrofula: same as King's Evil
Spotted Fever: cerebro-spinal memingitis
St. Anthony's Fire: same as erysipelas
Summer Complaint of Infants: cholera in infants
Typhus Fever: contagious disease transmitted to man by the bite of fleas, lice; accompanied by fever
Uremia: increased urea in the blood
Water Brash: similar to heartburn, belching of a thin, watery fluid
Wind Colic: distressing pain in the bowels
Wool Sorter's Disease: same as anthrax
Yellow Jack or Yellow Fever: infectious tropical disease transmitted by a yellow fever mosquito
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