I know that consumption is TB and I think quinsey is some sort of strep (or am I wrong) but what are The Clap and Dropsey.
Also what are some famous dieases and their real names. Oh thought of another one. Hanson (or is it Henson’s) disease = leprosy
Says here that dropsy is the “pathological accumulation of diluted lymph in body tissues and cavities.”
That goes along with my WAG, which was that it had to do with swelling/edema.
Also according to the dictionary, clap = gonorrhea.
Quinsy: acute inflammation of the tonsils and the surrounding tissues.
Clap is gonorrhea.
And it’s Hansen’s - en.
Is Dropsy the one where old ladies calves swell up like with fluid.
I thought dropsy was epilepsy. An old song called “Hospitality Blues” suggests it…
Nope, hang on, that’s St. Vitus’ Dance. The song goes something like “My chances of getting any rest looked bad, cuz…one had consumption, the other St. Vitus’ Dance.”
So dropsy, I dunno…
Ah! But do y’all know what dyspepsia is?
(no lookin’ in the dictionary, neither!)
Heartburn or indigestion, I think. Or something to do with the guts, anyway.
You got it. Dyspepsia was a catch-all term used in the 19th century to describe digestion problems.
Okay, here’s another one:
Why would I het offended if you called me “hysterical.”
I was right-First time today. Dropsy is also known as edema. A build up of fluids. Swelling of the ankles occurs Quite commonly. Relieved by resting and elevating legs. Diuretics are also used.
Well, since “hysterical” pretty much means exhibiting symptoms of possessing a uterus (hysterium), I guess you’d get insulted if you were a man.
Only women can get hysterical, and only men can testify.
Continuing the trivia quiz:
What condition was known as “the old man’s friend,” and why?
Who was known as the “Captain of the Little Men of Death.”
pneumonia?
Yours truly,
aha
Psychiatrists who couldn’t figure out what was wrong with someone used to just write it off to “dementia precox.”
TB also used to be known as the White Plague or phthisis (this last used mostly for the comical spitting effect, I’ll bet).
How about “the vapors?”
Ivick—I think “the old man’s friend” is also referred to as “Catherine Zeta-Jones.”
Gout? Maybe because the condition is exascerbated by eating and drinking stuff that old men like?
Here’s an easy one: what’s “tired blood”?
To quote an advertisement postcard I found in one of my old medical books:
INVALID LADIES this is for you. There are thousands of females in America who suffer untold miseries from chronic diseases common to their sex. This is largely to the peculiar habits of life and fashion, and the improper training of girlhood. Then, too, the physical changes that mark the three eras of womanhood (the maiden, the wife and the mother,) have much to do with their sufferings, most of which is endured in silence, unknown by even the family physician and most intimate friends. To all such whose hollow cheeks, pale faces, sunken eyes and feeble footsteps indicate nervous and general debility bordering on consumption, we would earnestly recommend that grand system renovating tonic,
BURDOCK BLOOD BITTERS, it makes pure, healthy blood, and regulates all the organs to a proper action, cures constipation, liver and kidney complaint, female weakness, nervous and general debility, and all the distressing miseries from which two-thirds of the women of America are suffering.
Sounds like a bargain to me!
Famous TB deaths are pretty well recorded, don’t know if I’ve ever heard of anyone famous dying of the clap (syphillis, yes - ate Al Capone’s brain into a piece of swiss cheese), but did you know that none other than George Washington, father of our country, died of “quinsey?” That little bit of information was “free for the cost of your tuition” as one of my history profs used to say.
Some kind of anemia, maybe?
TMR
Birth. School. Work. Death.
the vapors = fainting or dizziness, generally from the era of corsets which restricted breathing so greatly as to cause the vapors
tired blood = anemia, (iron deficiency, I think)
I’ve got a friend with mild gout; he’s only 35ish. Apparently there’s a significant hereditary factor in gout.
The adage “Knowledge is Power” is incorrect. The correct formulation is “Knowledge that other people don’t have is Power”. - The Donald