CABARRUS COUNTY
NORTH CAROLINA


American History & Genealogy Project

DICTIONARIES: OLD MEDICAL TERMS

D

Day Fever: fever lasting one day; sweating sickness

Debility: lack of movement or staying in bed

Decrepitude: feebleness due to old age

Delirium tremens: hallucinations due to alchoholism

Dengue: infectious fever endemic to East Africa

Dentition: cutting of teeth

Deplumation: tumor of the eyelids which causes hair loss

Diary Fever: fever that lasts one day

Diptheria: contagious disease of the throat

Distemper: usually animal disease with malaise, discharge from nose and throat, anorexia

Dock Fever: Yellow Fever

Dropsy: edema (swelling), often caused by kidney or heart disease

Dropsy of the Brain: Encephalitis

Dry Bellyache: lead poisoning

Dyscrasy: abnormal body condition

Dysentery: inflamation of colon with frequent passage

Dysorexy: reduced appetite of mucous and blood

Dyspepsia: indigestion and heartburn; heart attack symptoms

Dysury: difficulty in urination

E

Eclampsy: symptoms of epilepsy; convulsions during labor

Ecstasy: form of catalepsy characterized by loss of reason

Edema: nephrosis; swelling of tissues

Edema of Lungs: congestive heart failure, form of dropsy

Eel Thing: erysipelas

Elephantiasis: form of leprosy

Encephalitis: swelling of brain; sleeping sickness

Enteric Fever: Typhoid Fever

Enterocolitis: inflamation of the intestines

Enteritis: inflamationof the bowels

Epitaxis: nose bleed

Erysipelas: contagious skin disease, due to Streptococci with vesicular and bulbous lesions

Extravasted Blood: rupture of a blood vessel

Source: Provided by Dan Burrows

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