MISC: Medical Terms of old days.

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Contributed by kybrenda@aol.com
Date: 24 Aug 2000
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old term                  what it means

Apoplexy                    Stroke
Bad Blood                   Syphilis
Blood Poisoning 	    Bacterial Infections
Brights Disease             Kidney Disease
Consumption                 TB or pulmonary disease
Cretinism                   Congential Hypothyroidism
Dropsy                      Congestive Heart Failure
Fatty Liver                 Cirrhosis
Glandular Fever             Mononucleosis
Grippe                      Influenza
Jail Fever                  Typhus
Lock Jaw                    Tetanus
Lung Fever                  Pneumonia
Lung sickness               Tuberculosis
Plauge/Black Death          Bubonic Plague
Podagra                     Gout
Pott's disease              tuberculosis of the spinal vertebrae
Quinsy                      Streptococcal tonsilitis
Scrofula                    Tuberculosis of the neck lymph nodes.
Toxemia of Pregnancy        Eclampsia High Blood Pressure Seizures.


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Contributed by SACANNON@prodigy.net
Date: 24 Aug 2000
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This is transcription of Dropsy cure, that was brought to TX by the Burch family, after they 
sold their land in 1835 in Nelson and Bullitt Co., KY. 

Directions for Dropsy

One gallon of verry Strong apple vinager  
One hand full of rusty nails 
One hand full of black Snake root, 
the roots of forty bunches of biar grass well beat up
Put all of this into an grand pot and Simer it down to one quart
then Strane it and slightly rinse the pot 
put this quart and one quart of good Whiskey and one pint of Syrup
in to the Same pot and Simer it down to one quart take one Table
Spoon full three times a day gest one half hour before eating

This is info from medical book--

DROPSY.  An accumulation of watery fluid in the tissues and serous cavities of the body is 
described as dropsy or edema. This fluid is always present in tissues, filling  the 
interstices between the component cells, and is derived from the blood.  In dropsy it is 
greatly increased; the tissues are, as it were, water-logged and they become swollen.
 When it affects the skin the existence of dropsy is shown by what is called pitting;
when the skin is pressed firmly with the finger a depression is left which takes some time 
to fill up again.  Pitting is caused most easily when pressure is made on skin overlying 
bone or tendon, and when a slight degree of dropsy is suspected in the leg pressure is 
generally made on the inner surface of the skin bone, over one of the prominences of the
ankle or over the Achilles tendon; on the face, pressure is made on the bone below the lower 
eyelid. Dropsical fluid in a serous cavity may accompany dropsy of the skin or occur
independently; when it occurs in the peritoneal cavity, that is, the space between the 
abdominal viscera and the abdominal wall, the condition is usually referred to as ascites; 
when in the pleural cavity it may be called hydrothorax, and in the pericardial, 
hydropericardium.

Dropsy a Symptom, Not a Disease
Dropsy may occur from many and various causes; it is not a disease in itself, but merely a 
symptom.  A common cause is obstruction of the veins, and the dropsy is then due to 
back-pressure.  A tight garter, for example, may cause dropsy in the limb below it; or 
varicose veins may result from blocking of a vein by a clot, or thrombus, or from the 
pressure of a tumor.  In cirrhosis of the liver the flow of blood in the portal vein is 
obstructed by scar tissue pressing on the veins within the liver and ascites is likely to 
result.  When the heart is weak and the circulation feeble, dropsy may appear in the legs
after the patient has been walking about, or in advanced cases there may be dropsy all over 
the body, including the serous cavities.

Poverty of the blood, as in anemia, may also cause dropsy.  During the great war, in 
communities which had not sufficient food, many cases of what was called war edema occurred. 
 It is a common symptom of beri-beri, a disease caused by citamin starvation.  Edema about 
the face and neck may occur from shellfish poisoning, and localized or general edema results 
from nervous disturbance in the disease known as angioneurotic edema. More or less edema 
tends to accompany inflammatory disturbance, particularly when it occurs in the loose tissue 
beneath the skin, as in cellulitis.  The most common cause of general dropsy is acute 
nephritis or Bright's disease, and here the earliest site is usually about the eyes.  
Swelling is seen in the morning; if the patient gets up it may disappear as the day wears 
on.

The treatment of dropsy depends on the cause.  Unless it is due to such an obvious thing as 
a tight garter, a doctor should be consulted without delay.