Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms
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Hallucination

Illusory perception; a common symptom of severe mental disorder; Delusion. [Wordnet]

Hamartoma

A focal growth that resembles a neoplasm but results from faulty development in an organ. [Wordnet]

Hæmaturia

This is a hemorrhage from the mucous membrane of the urinary passages, the kidneys, bladder or urethra. [Wilson1893]

Example from an 1876 death certificate from Australia:

Hand, Foot & Mouth Disease

Hand, foot and mouth disease is a viral infection caused by a strain of Coxsackie virus. It causes a blister-like rash that, as the name implies, involves the hands, feet and mouth. (Hand, foot and mouth disease is different than foot-and-mouth disease, which is an infection of cattle, pigs, sheep, goats and deer and is caused by a different virus.). Symptoms of fever, poor appetite, runny nose and sore throat can appear three to five days after exposure. A blister-like rash on the hands, feet and in the mouth usually develops one to two days after the initial symptoms. [NYHealth]

Information sheet from NYS Dept of Health

Hardening of Bowels

Induration

Hay Asthma

Hay Fever

Hay Fever

An allergic condition affecting the mucous membranes of the upper respiratory tract and the eyes, most often characterized by nasal discharge, sneezing, and itchy, watery eyes and usually caused by an abnormal sensitivity to airborne pollen. Also called pollinosis. [Heritage]

Head Cold

A common cold mainly affecting the mucous membranes of the nasal passages, characterized by congestion, headache, and sneezing. [Heritage]

Head Lice

Pediculosis

Headache

Pain in the head; called also cephalalgia. [Dorland]

Heart Attack

A heart attack (also known as a myocardial infarction) is the death of heart muscle from the sudden blockage of a coronary artery by a blood clot. Coronary arteries are blood vessels that supply the heart muscle with blood and oxygen. Blockage of a coronary artery deprives the heart muscle of blood and oxygen, causing injury to the heart muscle. Injury to the heart muscle causes chest pain and pressure. If blood flow is not restored within 20 to 40 minutes, irreversible death of the heart muscle will begin to occur. Muscle continues to die for 6-8 hours at which time the heart attack usually is "complete." The dead heart muscle is replaced by scar tissue. [Medicinenet]

Heart Burn

An esophageal symptom consisting of a retrosternal sensation of warmth or burning occurring in waves and tending to rise upward toward the neck; it may be accompanied by a reflux of fluid into the mouth (water brash). It is often associated with gastroesophageal reflux. Called also pyrosis. [Dorland]

Heart Disease

A structural or functional abnormality of the heart, or of the blood vessels supplying the heart, that impairs its normal functioning. [Heritage]

Heart Failure

A condition where there is ineffective pumping of the heart leading to an accumulation of fluid in the lungs. Typical symptoms include shortness of breath with exertion, difficulty breathing when lying flat and leg or ankle swelling. Causes include chronic hypertension, cardiomyopathy and myocardial infarction. [CancerWEB]

Heat Rash

Inflammation around the sweat ducts [Wordnet]

Heatstroke

A condition caused by exposure to excessive heat, natural or artificial, and marked by dry skin, vertigo, headache, thirst, nausea, and muscular cramps; body temperature may be dangerously elevated, contrasting with heat exhaustion in which the body temperature may be subnormal. [Dorland]

Hectic Fever

A slow consuming fever, generally attending a bad habit of body, or some incurable and deep rooted disease. [Buchan1798]

It is known by exacerbations at noon, but greater in the evening, with slight remissions in the morning, after nocturnal sweats; the urine depositing a furfuraceo-lateritious sediment; appetite good; thirst moderate. Hectic fever is symptomatic of chlorosis, scrofula, phthisis, diseased viscera, etc. [Hooper1843]

The name of a slow, continued, or remittent fever, which generally accompanies the end of organic affections, and has been esteemed idiopathic, although it is probably always symptomatic. It is the fever of irritation and debility; and is characterized by progressive emaciation, frequent pulse, hot skin, especially of the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, and, towards the end, colliquative sweats and diarrhea. Being symptomatic, it can only be removed by getting rid of the original affection. This is generally difficult, and almost always hopeless in the disease which it most commonly accompanies, consumption. [Dunglison1868].

A fever of irritation and debility, occurring usually at an advanced stage of exhausting disease, as in pulmonary consumption. [Webster]

Hematemesis

A vomiting of blood. [Heritage]

Hemiplegia

A palsy that affects one side only of the body. [Webster1913].

Paralysis of one side of the body. [Wordnet].

Total or partial paralysis of one side of the body that results from disease of or injury to the motor centers of the brain. [Merriam Webster].

Example from a 1901 Ohio Death Certificate:

Hemophilia

Any of several hereditary blood-coagulation disorders in which the blood fails to clot normally because of a deficiency or abnormality of one of the clotting factors. Hemophilia, a recessive trait associated with the X-chromosome, is manifested almost exclusively in males. [Heritage]

Hemoptysis

The spitting of blood derived from the lungs or bronchial tubes as a result of pulmonary or bronchial hemorrhage. [CivilWarMed]

Hemorrhage

Excessive discharge of blood from the blood vessels; profuse bleeding. [Heritage]

Hemorrhoids

The piles. [Buchan1798]

Livid and painful swellings formed by the dilation of the blood vessels around the margin of, or within, the anus, from which blood or mucus is occasionally discharged; piles; emerods. [Dorland]

Hempen Fever

A man who was hanged is said to have died of hempen fever; and , in Dorsetshire, to have been stabbed with a Bridport dagger; Bridport being a place famous for manufacturing hemp into cords. [Grose1788]

Hepatitis

Inflammation of the liver. [Dorland].
 
Hepatitis is any of several liver diseases characterized by inflammation, liver enlargement, jaundice, fever and abdominal pain. It can be caused by a number of different etiologies: some of these are drug, alcohol, or toxin-induced hepatitis, autoimmune disease, cholestasis, and viral hepatitis. [Wikipedia].
 
"hepatitis" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. [Webster]
 
Fact sheet from CDC
Information Card from the CDC
Information Card 2 from the CDC
Information sheet from NYS Dept of Health

Hepatopathia

Disease of the liver.

Hereditary Disease

Disease genetically transmitted from parent to offspring. [Dorland]

Hernia

The protrusion of a loop or knuckle of an organ or tissue through an abnormal opening; Rupture. [Dorland]

"hernia" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1380. [Webster]

Hernia Humoralis

Inflammation of the Testicles [Hooper1822]

Abdominal Hernia

Herniation of omentum, intestine, or some other internal body structure through the abdominal wall. [Dorland]

Inguinal Hernia

Hernia of an intestinal loop into the inguinal canal. An indirect inguinal hernia (external or oblique hernia) leaves the abdomen through the deep inguinal ring, and passes down obliquely through the inguinal canal, lateral to the inferior epigastric artery. A direct inguinal hernia (internal hernia) emerges between the inferior epigastric artery and the edge of the rectus muscle. [Dorland]

Strangulated Hernia

A hernia so tightly compressed in some part of the channel through which it has been protruded as to arrest its circulation, and produce swelling of the protruded part. It may occur in recent or chronic hernia, but is more common in the latter. [Webster]

Herpes

Serpigo, or tetter; a skin disease in which little itchy vesicles increase, spread, and cluster together, terminating in furfuraceous scales. [Thomas1875]

Herpes Zoster

Herpes spreading across the waist, or thorax, like a sash or sword-belt, commonly called shingles. [Hoblyn1855]

A reactivation of the same Herpes virus that is responsible for chicken pox. This results in a painful blistery red rash that is confined to one side of the body; Shingles. [CancerWEB]

Fact sheet from CDC

Hip Disease

White Swelling

Hip Joint Disease

White Swelling, tuberculosis of the hip joint.

Hives

Cynanche Trachealis, Urticaria. In Scotland; any eruption of the skin, proceeding from an internal cause; and, in Lothian, it is used to denote both the red and the yellow gum. In the United States it is vaguely employed; most frequently, perhaps, for Urticaria. [Dunglison1874]

A popular name for the croup. It is also applied to different species of rash. [Thomas1875]

An itchy skin eruption characterized by wheals with pale interiors and well-defined red margins; usually the result of an allergic response to insect bites or food or drugs. [Wordnet].

Bold Hives

Cynanche Trachealis [Hooper1829]

Croup [Appleton1904]

Eating Hives

Rupia escharotica, known in Ireland under the names white blisters, eating hives, and burnt holes. [Dunglison1874]

Hodgkin's Disease

A malignant, progressive, sometimes fatal disease of unknown cause, marked by enlargement of the lymph nodes, spleen, and liver. Also called Hodgkin's lymphoma. [Heritage]

Holy Fire

Ignis Sacer [Medicinenet]

Homesickness

Nostalgia

Hooping Cough

Whooping cough. A convulsive cough, consisting of a long series of forcible expirations, followed by a deep, loud, sonorous inspiration, and repeated more or less frequently during each paroxysm. It is popularly known in England as whooping cough, kinkcough, and chincough; in France , as coqueluche; in Germany, as keuchhusten and stickhusten, from the sonorous inspiration which marks it; and technically as tussis convulsiva and pertussis. [Hoblyn1900].

Example from an 1862 Death Register from Scotland:

Hornpox

Varicella

Hospital Fever

Typhus Gravior

Hotel Fever

Any of a number of affections that occurred to people staying in small unsanitary hotels. In 1857 the National Hotel in Washington, D.C. had several cases of hotel fever that were attributed to an open sewer line that ran beneath the hotel. The sewer gases would travel through the heating ducts and enter the rooms. [Schmidt2007]

House Disease

Consumption. [Gould1916]

Humid Tetter

Eczema

Humor

A general term for any fluid in the body. [Hooper1822]

Humour

Every fluid substance of an organized body; as the blood, chyle, lymph, etc. The Humours differ considerably as to number and quality in the different species of organized beings; and even in the same species, according to the state of health or disease. The ancients reduced them to four; which they called cardinal humours: the blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and atrabilis or black bile.[Dunglison1855]

Hunchback

Nonmedical term for kyphosis or gibbus.  [CancerWEB]

Hunger Pest

Relapsing Fever

Hunger Typhus

Epidemic Typhus

Huntington's Chorea / Disease

An autosomal dominant disease characterized by chronic progressive chorea and mental deterioration terminating in dementia; the age of onset is variable but usually in the fourth decade of life, with death within 15 years. [Dorland]

Hutchinson’s Triad

Deafness, impaired vision, and notched, peg-shaped teeth. Symptoms in children with hereditary Syphilis. [Cartwright]

Hydatid

The larval form of a tapeworm, having the head and neck of a tapeworm attached to a saclike body filled with fluid; -- called also bladder worm, and measle (as, pork measle). [Webster]

Hydrocele

A collection of serous fluid in the areolar texture of the scrotum or in the coverings, especially in the serous sac, investing the testicle or the spermatic cord; dropsy of the testicle. [Webster]

Hydrocephalus

An accumulation of fluid within the ventricles or subarachnoid spaces of the brain. In the congenital form, the head is noticed to be unusually large at birth, or very soon develops after coming into the world. [Thomas1907]

The word "hydrocephalus" in Greek literally means "watery head." [Medicinenet]

Example from an 1881 German Death Certificate:

Hydrops / Hydropsy

Dropsy; a morbid accumulation of water in a cavity, or the cellular substance. [Hoblyn1855]

Example from an 1864 Church Record from Slovakia:

Hydrothorax

A collection of serous fluid within the pleural cavity without inflammation. Dropsy of the Chest. [Thomas1907]

Hyperaemia

Preternatural accumulation of blood in the capillary vessels, more especially local plethora. [Dunglison1868]

Hypertrophy

Progressive degeneration of an organ or tissue caused by loss of cells.

Hypo

Hypochondria

Hypochondria

The persistent conviction that one is or is likely to become ill, often involving symptoms when illness is neither present nor likely, and persisting despite reassurance and medical evidence to the contrary. Also called hypochondriasis. [Heritage]

Hystaris Pyrosis

Pyrosia, an affection characterized by a spasmodic pain or hot sensation in the stomach with a rising of watery liquid into the mouth; Heartburn. [Webster]

Hysteria / Hysterics

A nervous affection, occurring almost exclusively in women, in which the emotional and reflex excitability is exaggerated, and the will power correspondingly diminished, so that the patient loses control over the emotions, becomes the victim of imaginary sensations, and often falls into paroxysm or fits. [Webster1913]

Hystero-Epilepsy Hystero-epilepsy is an alleged disease "discovered" by 19th-century French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. It is considered a famous example of iatrogenic artifact, or a disease created by doctors. The disease was considered a combination of hysteria and epilepsy. Charcot housed his "hystero-epilepsy" patients in the same ward as patients with epilepsy, because both were considered "episodic" diseases. Symptoms included "convulsions, contortions, fainting, and transient impairment of consciousness." Joseph Babinski convinced Charcot that he was inducing the symptoms in his patients because of his treatment regimen. [Wikipedia]

Hysteria accompanied by convulsions resembling epileptic seizures. [Stedman]

 

 

 

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