# List off your favorite old-timey disease names! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 9, 2003, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010 "2003-12-09T20:57:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/121 "2010-07-18T06:03:45Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Sounds like the 17th-century version of “heroin chic”. I heard once that the cosmetic fashion of rougeing pale cheeks grew, at least in part, from the TB look. ETA, although a quick trip to wiki debunks that > **[Rouge (cosmetics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouge_(cosmetics))** > > Rouge (/ˈruːʒ/; meaning "red" in French), also called blush or blusher, is a cosmetic for coloring the cheeks in a variety of shades, or the lips red. It is applied as a powder, cream or liquid. > Each year, approximately US$25 billion is spent on buying rouge. > The Ancient Egyptians were known for their creation of cosmetics, particularly their use of rouge. Ancient Egyptian pictographs show men and women wearing lip and cheek rouge. They blended fat with red ochre to create a stain that was red ... ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/122 "2010-07-20T13:56:11Z")
Hate to keep a zombie alive, but I recently heard a great one from comic Michael Showalter. He had some old-school terms for Restless Leg Syndrome. My favorites were “Sewing-Machine Foot” and “The Kicks”. As he put it, “The Kicks” sounds so Dickensian. “Oh, Doctor Goodfellow, pray tell us that Eustace will be well!” “I’m afraid not, Martha. He’s got a bad case of The Kicks.” ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/123 "2010-07-20T15:08:39Z")
When my granddaughter was but a couple of months old, her great grandmother (on the in-law’s side of the family) picked the child up by the diaper waist band in front, and dangled that sweet innocent baby as she made a bouncing motion… She said she was checking to see if it was “liver tied.” I don’t know what that means but it scared the shit out of all of us. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/124 "2010-07-20T18:47:08Z")
A gay male co-worker of mine came back from a fabulous tropical vacation with giardiasis, otherwise known as Beaver Fever. Yes, we still make fun of him for it. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/125 "2010-07-20T19:03:46Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > Gout is not an obsolete term. No, it’s still used to refer to a real disease – I met someone with occasional gout a while ago, and it’s not fun. But lord, it is hard to be sympathetic, when you’re thinking “Gout? Gout!? Where’s your powdered wig, gold-topped cane and liveried footmen?” ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/126 "2010-07-20T19:06:58Z")
Semi-substantiated rumour has it that “The Danbury Shakes” a.k.a. “The Hatter’s Disease” was a term for mercury poisoning. (Mercury was used to treat beaver pelts to make hats; Danbury, CT was a major hat-making center). ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/127 "2010-07-20T19:45:14Z")
I had “midnight croup” when I was little. Or at least, that’s how my parents and the doctor referred to it. (Knowing my parents, they probably went out of their way to find the old-timeyest doc in town.) Anyway I was so little I didn’t understand properly at first, and though they were talking about “midnight crook” and thought that meant someone would come and steal me away, still hacking and coughing, into the night. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/128 "2010-07-20T20:00:19Z")
Some people in the '30s suffered from [Jake leg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_leg), caused by the effects of a toxic Jamaican ginger extract substitute common during prohibition. Bad juice. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/129 "2010-07-20T20:25:20Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > No, it’s still used to refer to a real disease – I met someone with occasional gout a while ago, and it’s not fun. > But lord, it is hard to be sympathetic, when you’re thinking “Gout? Gout!? Where’s your powdered wig, gold-topped cane and liveried footmen?” It’s about as much fun as if someone injected coarse-grade carborundum grit into the mating surfaces of a load-bearing joint, which is damn near what actually does happen. It generally means no port and pheasant for six to nine months, or else a quick course of indometacin and a long-term steady dose of allopurinol. Sadly, I never have had my foot bound up like a wasp’s nest in nine feet of crepe bandage like you’re supposed to in the cartoons. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/130 "2010-07-20T21:01:58Z")
Just last week, I was seized by a violent ague. ---
**Author:** ![cwthree](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de0a6/32.png) [@cwthree](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cwthree)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/131 "2010-07-20T21:53:40Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#): > > Another horrible cause of it is sexual violence, to the point that fistulas become a severe problem in areas where rape is used as a weapon of war. I remember reading an interview with a beleaguered gynecological surgeon working in Africa for very little money, trying to treat as many brutalized women and girls for fistula as he could. It’s also associated with prolonged labor where the baby’s head compresses the vaginal wall and the bladder against the pubic bone. Distressingly common in places where girls are either married and impregnated while quite young, or where the growth of adult females has been stunted due to chronic malnutrition. ---
**Author:** ![kcor1953](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kcor1953/32/3221_2.png) [@kcor1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kcor1953)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/132 "2010-07-21T11:20:41Z")
Reading the ague and epizootic posts above, half the fun is the pronunciation. My grandpa had influenza in WWI (lived), and said he’d had “the a-gyou.” I first heard of epizootics in a book (about the Stanley Steamer automobile!) and assumed it was pronounced “eppy-zoo-tic.” And have found plenty of culural references using that pronunciation since. Someone mentioned hysteria, but I once encountered a case of hysterical paralysis–which I assume is now broken down into a range of better-named conditions. I and a second clerk were going to be at the same register on the day of the big sale (biggest sale day of the year). We took classes to learn how to deal with the extra work, etc. On the day, before they opened the doors, second clerk just “shut down.” Too scared to talk ar move or even stand up, she was taken out on a litter. She could maintain eye contact. Very creepy. I had to work the register alone–and this was in the day of the crank-operated mechanical registers! ---
**Author:** ![Daithi\_Lacha](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daithi_lacha/32/5430_2.png) [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/133 "2010-07-21T12:05:30Z")
Just finished watching the BBC series _Poldark_, set in 18th-century Cornwall. In it, several people were diagnosed as having **morbid sore throat** , which I believe is Diptheria. ---
**Author:** ![Looey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ee7513/32.png) [@Looey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Looey)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/134 "2010-07-22T15:44:40Z")
How 'bout ringworm (actually a fungal infection) and lice? (not technically a disease, but still gross, then and now) ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/135 "2010-07-22T16:10:14Z")
Apparently we have forgotten the **Heartbreak of Psoriasis**. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/136 "2010-07-22T16:29:43Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > [Per new policies,](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7697100#post7697100)zombieism is no longer a disease, so I’m leaving this open. That reminds of another disease, lycanthropy. When I was doing genealogical research on my family I got the Civil War military medical records of my great-great-great-grandfather. He missed some action during the war due to pleurisy and quinsy. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/137 "2010-07-22T16:37:48Z")
TB or not TB, that is consumption. Scurvy and rickets just sound cool. Dispepsia sounds like you prefer coke. How about catarrh? Sounds like something a pirate would get. Kuru not only sounds cool, but apparently one can get it by eating the brains of someone else who had it. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/138 "2010-07-22T16:38:59Z")
“A word known mainly to Americans, ‘fantods’ refers to a state of extreme nervousness or restlessness.” Hmm, I wonder why it’s mostly Americans who know it. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010/139 "2010-07-22T19:29:30Z")
I have heard diarrhea referred to by older generations as “the trots.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/list-off-your-favorite-old-timey-disease-names/218010.md?page=6)