For Genealogy Medical Terms of Yesterday
Terms that are sometimes seen on death certificates or in old newspapers.
1. Apoplexy - Paralysis from stroke (Sometimes it will be spelled incorrectly - appoplexy)
2. Bilious fever - Typhoid, malaria, or hepatitis
3. Biliousness - Jaundice from liver disease
4. Black plague or death - Bubonic plague
5. Black fever - Acute infection with high fever and red skin lesions
6. Black vomit - Vomiting blood, black blood due to ulcers or yellow fever
7. Black water fever - Dark urine with high temperature
8. Bladder in throat - Diphtheria
9. Blood poisoning - Bacterial infection or septicemia
10. Bloody flux - Bloody stools
11. Bloody sweat - Sweating sickness
12. Brain fever - Meningitis
13. Bright's disease - Chronic inflammatory disease of kidneys
14. Bronze John - Yellow fever
15. Bule - Boil, tumor or swelling
16. Camp fever - Typhus or Camp diarrhea
17. Canine madness - Rabies
18. Canker - Ulceration of mouth or lips or herpes simplex
19. Cerebritis - Inflammation of cerebrum or lead poisoning
20 Child bed fever - Infection following child birth
21. Chin cough - Whooping cough
22. Cholera - Acute, severe, contagious diarrhea with intestinal lining sloughing
23. Chorea - Disease characterized by convulsions, contortions and dancing
24. Cold plague - Ague characterized by chills
25. Colic - An abdominal pain and cramping
26. Confinement - Death as the result of the confinement of childbirth. During and after.
27. Congestive chills - Malaria
28. Consumption - Tuberculosis
29. Congestive chills - Malaria with diarrhea
30. Congestive fever - Malaria
31. Corruption - Infection
32. Cramp colic - Appendicitis
33. Croup - Laryngitis, diphtheria, or sore throat
34. Cystitis - Inflammation of the bladder
35. Day fever - Fever lasting one day; sweating sickness
36. Decrepitude - Feebleness from old age
37. Dentition - Cutting of teeth
38. Diary fever - A fever that lasts one day
39. Dock fever - Yellow fever
40. Dropsy - Edema (swelling), often caused by kidney or heart disease
41. Dropsy of the Brain - Encephalitis
42. Dry Bellyache - Lead poisoning
43. Edema of lungs - Congestive heart failure, also a form of dropsy
44. Enteric fever - Typhoid fever
45. Falling sickness - Epilepsy
46. Fatty Liver - Cirrhosis of liver
47. Fits - Sudden attack or seizure of muscle activity, epilepsy
48. Flux - An excessive flow or discharge of fluid like hemorrhage or diarrhea
49. French pox - Syphilis or great pox
50. Gathering - A collection of pus
51. Green fever - Anemia
52. Grippe or grip - Influenza like symptoms
53. Grocer's itch - Skin disease caused by mites in sugar or flour
54. Heart sickness - Condition caused by loss of salt from body
55. King's evil - Tuberculosis of neck and lymph glands
56. Horrors - Delirium tremens
57. Hydrophobia - Rabies
58. Impetigo - also called summer sores. It was a contagious skin disease with by pustules
59. Jaundice - Condition caused by a liver disease
60. Lockjaw - Tetanus or infectious disease affecting the muscles of the neck and jaw.
71. Long sickness - Tuberculosis
72. Lung fever - Pneumonia
73. Lung sickness - Tuberculosis
74. Malignant sore throat - Diphtheria
75. Mania - Insanity
76. Meningitis - Inflations of brain or spinal cord
77. Milk leg - swelling of the leg after the birth of a child
78. Nephrites - Inflammation of kidneys - [I've seen Bright's Disease used as Nephrites.]
79. Palsy - Paralysis or uncontrolled movement of controlled muscles
80. Puerperal exhaustion - Death from child birth
81. Phthisis - Chronic wasting away another name for tuberculosis
82. Plague- An acute febrile highly infectious disease
83. Pleurisy - pains in the chest area
84. Pott's disease - Tuberculosis of spine
85. Puerperal exhaustion - Death from childbirth
86. Puking fever - Milk sickness
87. Putrid fever - Diphtheria
88. Quinsy - Tonsillitis
89. Rheumatism - A disorder associated with pain in joints
90. Rickets - Disease of skeletal system
91. Rose cold - Hay fever or nasal symptoms of an allergy
92. Rubella - German measles, hard measles, & red measles
93. Scarlatina - Scarlet fever
94. Scarlet fever - A disease with a red rash
95. Scarlet rash - Roseola
96. Sciatica - Rheumatism in the hips
97. Screws - Rheumatism
98. Scrum pox - Summer Sores, impetigo
99. Scurvy - Lack of vitamin C
100. Ship fever - Typhus
101. Sloes - Milk sickness
102. Small pox - Contagious disease with fever and blisters
103. Sore throat distemper - Diphtheria or quinsy
104. Spanish influenza - Epidemic influenza
105. Spotted fever - Either typhus or meningitis
106. St. Vitas dance - jerking movements involuntary
107. Stranger's fever - Yellow fever
108. Swamp sickness - Could be malaria, typhoid or encephalitis
109. Tetanus - Infectious fever with high fever, headache and dizziness
110. Thrombosis - Blood clot inside blood
111. Vessel Thrush - red spots in the mouth
112. Tick fever - Rocky mountain spotted fever
113. Trench mouth - ulcers along gum line, caused by poor nutrition & hygiene
114. Typhus - Infectious fever with high fever, headache, and dizziness
115. Viper's dance - St. Vitus Dance
116. Water on brain - Enlarged head
117. White swelling - Tuberculosis of the bone
118. Winter fever - Pneumonia
119. Womb fever - Infection of the uterus
120. Worm fit - Convulsions associated with teething or from worms
121. Yellow ganders - hepatitis
122. Yellow jacket - Yellow fever
