My son had croup in October. It was neato.
St Vitus Dance- hey that sounds fun! Is it like Twister?
Also known as “the king’s evil” because the monarch was supposed to have the ability to cure it by means of a laying on of hands. (Cf. Earthling’s post – apparently Charles II wasn’t picking up the slack. ;))
Syphilis actually takes its name from a sixteenth-century poem called Syphilis, sive Morbus Gallicus (“Syphilis, or the French Disease”) – it was, colloquially, called the pox. Epilepsy was the falling-sickness, and – well, I can’t make out half of this rather impressive tirade from Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida because I don’t have a decent annotated edition handy:
[nitpick] Grave’s disease, hyperthyroidism with diffuse goiter, ophthalmopathy and dermopathy from thyroid stimulating Ig. [/nitpick].
Also, the spanish equivalent of “the grippe” is still used for influenza here.
Dengue fever, otherwise known as Break Bone Fever. A friend of mine had it and said that the name is quite accurate.
Lupus. I knew someone who had this but she didn’t know what caused it and I believe she said her doctors didn’t know how to treat it.
It’s an autoinmune disease.
Kuru is kinda cool.
Kuru is pretty much my all time favorite exotic disease.
I’ve always thought that vapors wasn’t so much a medical condition but meant someone prone to a nervous disposition or panic attacks. Hey, c’mon, I’ve read a couple thousand romance novels…this is a common ailment in all the rich busy-bodied noble families. 
Mumps.
Do kids still get mumps?
Yes and no. According to Webster’s, it did refer to hysteria or depression. But those are medical conditions.
Let’s see. My dad had typhoid fever; mother had malaria. My sister had scarlet fever and I had impetago and whooping cough.
Yellow fever, anyone? Bubonic plague?
I feel a swoon coming on.
Consumption is what you die of when you are captured by cannibals.
(bad-a-boom)
Consumption was once a “fashionable” disease, as it was believed that artists and other sensitive types were particularly prone to it. There were perfectly healthy people who cultivated a “consumptive” style. Pretty bizzare.
During the '60s, hippies abandoned much of their parents teachings and advice. In some cases this was a good thing. In some cases, this was not. One of the things abandoned (at least by some) was the importance of cleanliness…so doctors started seeing diseases that hadn’t been seen for so long that they didn’t have proper scientific names…things like the “rot” and the “crud”…
Take a look at old death certificates and you’ll see a whole range of “old timey” diseases named. A surprising number of people appeared to have died from “indigestion.” What they probably really died from was a heart attack.
Like someone earlier mentioned, I always thought “St. Vitus’ Dance” sounded like a pretty happening disease to come down with.
You could also get “milk fever,” or at least you could when my grandfather had it.
And as an interesting aside, George Washington died of “quinsy.” Known today as acute laryngitis (sp?).
Here’s what I like to do to make anything sound old-timey: I add the word “the” at the beginning. My husband, a social worker, says he was ready to kill me when discussing a client in a case meeting and he accidentally mentioned that the child’s grandmother had “the” alzheimers.
Ah, yes. Good old Miner’s Lung. Ya can’t beat the classics.
…although, and I know it’s not exactly an olde-tyme disease, I’ve always favoured the honta virus for sheer ‘Holy COW that’s disgusting!’ appeal.
L.
What… there’s no such thing as Hanta?
Oh, please. My ex-boyfriend HAD Hanta.
Just ask him. He’ll tell you.
:rolleyes:
Oh, that reminded me of another one! I was in a productionof “Barnum” in high school and we had professional clowns come in and teach us how to do the make-up. After the greasepaint is applied clowns powder their faces with talcum or rice powder. The clowns told us to hold our breath as we powdered, because there are many clowns in old clowns homes with “clown lung,” or “white lung,” from inhaling the face powder. Like black lung, only for clowns.
“Scorbutus” is another name for scurvy. It’s the “cause of death” listed on my great-great-grandfather’s death record from Andersonville prison camp during the Civil War. Another great-great-grandfather got consumption as a prisoner-of-war in another camp, but survived.
My own favorite disease is elephantiasis.
The ague (a bad cold with fever)
Consumption usually means tuberculosis.
Epizootic means, I think, “there’s a lot of that going around.”
Dropsy, if I recall correctly, is edema, a lymphatic swelling of a limb.
Shingles and scabies are skin conditions.
There’s an old joke where a john explains to a hooker, as he undresses, that he had, as a child, “toe-lio,” “knee-sles,” and “smallcox.”
Scabiosa is a flower, not a disease.
Union Scale also sounds like a disease, but it’s a wage rate.