Pachyderma

Thickening of the skin (usually unilateral on an extremity) caused by congenital enlargement of lymph vessel and lymph vessel obstruction. [Wordnet]

Pachymeningitis

Inflammation of the dura mater. [Dunglison1874]

Example from a 1912 Death Certificate from New Zealand:

Palpitation of the Heart

A violent, rapid, and often irregular beating of the heart, caused by emotional excitement, disease, or excessive action of any kind. It is usually functional rather than organic, and is most common in youth and middle life, especially among those engaged in sedentary occupations. [Appleton1904]

Example from a 1909 Canadian Death Certificate:

Palsy

The palsy is a loss or diminution of sense or motion, or of both, in one or more parts of the body. Of all the affections called nervous, this is the most suddenly fatal. It is more or less dangerous, according to the importance of the part affected. A palsy of the heart, lungs, or any part necessary to life, is mortal. When it affects the stomach, the intestines, or the bladder, it is highly dangerous. If the face be affected, the case is bad, as it shows that the disease proceeds from the brain. When the part affected feels cold, is insensible, or wastes away, or when the judgment and memory begin to fail, there is small hope of a cure. [Buchan1785]

Bell's Palsy

A unilateral facial muscle paralysis of sudden onset, resulting from trauma, compression, or infection of the facial nerve and characterized by muscle weakness and a distorted facial expression. [Heritage]

Creeping Palsy

A serious neurologic disease that results from the progressive degeneration of the motor neurons. [CancerWEB]

Paludal Fever

Malarial Fever

Pancarditis

Inflammation of all the structures of the heart. [CancerWEB]

Pappataci Fever

Sandfly Fever

Paralysis

Palsy. A disease characterized by loss or great diminution of the power of voluntary motion, affecting any part of the body. [Thomas1875].

Abolition of function, whether complete or partial; esp., the loss of the power of voluntary motion, with or without that of sensation, in any part of the body; palsy. [Webster1913].

Loss or impairment of the ability to move a body part, usually as a result of damage to its nerve supply. [Heritage]

 "paralysis" was first used: 1525. [Webster]

Example from a 1922 Kansas Death Certificate:

Paralysis Agitans

Parkinson's Disease

Erb's Paralysis

Erb's spastic paraplegia. , Erb's syphilitic spastic paraplegia an uncommon form of meningovascular syphilis marked by progressive spasticity and weakness of the legs, paraplegia, muscular atrophy, paresthesia, increased knee and ankle reflexes, and incontinence. Called also cerebrospinal syphilis, Erb's paralysis, Erb-Charcot disease, and syphilitic paraplegia. [Dorland]

Example from a 1929 Ohio Death Certificate:

Paralysis of the Insane

General paralysis of the insane. [Dunglison1874]

General Paralysis of the Insane

Insanity combines with progressive paralysis of the muscular system; an incurable affection, which seems to increase as the powers of the mind diminish. It is said to depend on hypertrophy of the connective tissue of the minute vessels of the pia mater and cortical substance of the brain. [Dunglison1874].

 A gradual progressive disease of the brain and nervous system in which there are ataxy and paresis usually following a definite order and course of development, which are particularly marked in speech and locomotion. There are sensory disorders and mental symptoms, at first of exaltation of feeling or expansive delirium, but invariably tending to complete dementia. There are organic changes in the encephalon and its membranes, and sometimes in the spinal cord and its membranes and in some sympathetic ganglia. [Appleton1904]

Infantile Paralysis

Old synonym for polio. [CancerWEB]

Paraphimosis

A condition in which the prepuce, after being retracted behind the glans penis, is constricted there, and can not be brought forward into place again. [Webster1913]

Paraphrenitis

Inflammation of the diaphragm.

Paraplegia

Complete paralysis of the lower half of the body including both legs, usually caused by damage to the spinal cord. [Heritage]

Paresis

Incomplete paralysis, affecting motion but not sensation. [Webster]

General Paresis of the Insane

The insanity caused by late-stage syphilis was once one of the more common forms of dementia; this was known as the general paresis of the insane. [Webster]

General Paresis

The insanity caused by late-stage syphilis was once one of the more common forms of dementia; this was known as the general paresis of the insane. [Webster]

Paristhmitis

Cynanche Tonsillaris, Quinsy.

Parkinson's Disease

A progressive nervous disease occurring most often after the age of 50, associated with the destruction of brain cells that produce dopamine and characterized by muscular tremor, slowing of movement, partial facial paralysis, peculiarity of gait and posture, and weakness. Also called paralysis agitans, shaking palsy. [Heritage]

Parotiditis

Cynanche Parotidea

Parotitis

Inflammation of the parotid gland, popularly termed the mumps. [Thomas1875]

Inflammation of the parotid gland (salivary glands near the ear). [CancerWEB]

Paroxysm

The fit, attack, or exacerbation, of a disease that occurs at intervals, or has decided remissions or intermissions. [CancerWEB]

Parturition

The act of delivery of the fœtus and its appendages; also the state during and immediately after delivery. [Dunglison1868]

The act or process of giving birth; childbirth. [Heritage]

Example from an 1864 Death Certificate from England:

Partus

Parturition

Pathogen

An agent that causes disease, especially a living microorganism such as a bacterium or fungus. [Heritage]

Pearl Eye

Pearl in the eye. The old English name of cataract. [Hoblyn1855]

Pediculosis

Infestation with lice. [Heritage]

Information sheet from NYS Dept of Health

Pellagra

An affection in which a morbid condition of the skin is a prominent symptom; it is very prevalent among the peasantry of the northern states of Italy. It is called mal del sole, from its being ascribed to the heat of the sun's rays; Italian elephantiasis, etc. [Hoblyn1855]

A disease common in certain parts of Italy, beginning by shining red spot on some part of the head or body. [Thomas1875]

Pellagra is a disease that occurs when a person does not get enough niacin (one of the B complex vitamins) or tryptophan (an amino acid) in their diet. It can also occur if the body fails to absorb these nutrients. The disease is common in certain parts of the world (in people consuming large quantities of corn). It is characterized by scaly skin sores, diarrhea, inflamed mucous membranes, and mental confusion and delusions. It may develop after gastrointestinal diseases or alcoholism. [MedlinePlus]

Infantile Pellagra

Kwashiorkor

Pemphigus

Any of several acute or chronic skin diseases characterized by groups of itching blisters. [Heritage]

Peptic Ulcer

An ulceration of the mucous membrane of the esophagus, stomach, or duodenum, caused by the action of the acid gastric juice. [Dorland]

Pericarditis

Inflammation of the pericardium (sac enclosing the heart). [Heritage]

Periodic Fever

An obsolete term introduced to describe the intermittent febrile episodes seen in disease later recognized and named familial Mediterranean fever. [CancerWEB]

Periostitis

Inflammation of the membrane covering the bones. [CivilWarMed]

Peripneumonia

Inflammation of the substance of the lungs. See pneumonia. [Dunglison1874]

Peritonitis

Inflammation of the peritoneum (membrane lining the abdominal cavity). Characterized by violent pain in the abdomen, increased by the slightest pressure, often by simple weight of bed clothes. It frequently occurs in parturient state and begins on the second or third day after delivery. At times, a malignant epidemic, and perhaps contagious, variety has made its appearance, and destroyed numbers of females. This has been described under the name puerperal fever, metroperitonitis and low fever of child bed. [Dunglison1874]

Perityphlitis

Inflammation of the connective tissue about the caecum. [CancerWEB]

Pernicious Anemia

A chronic progressive anemia of older adults; thought to result from a lack of intrinsic factor (a substance secreted by the stomach that is responsible for the absorption of vitamin B-12). [Wordnet]

Pernicious Fever

Intermittent fever, when attended with great danger, and which destroys the majority of those affected by it in the first four or five paroxysms; sometimes in the very first. [Dunglison1868]

Pernio

A chilbain, especially one on the heel; the effect of inflammation caused by cold. [Hoblyn1855]

A kibe or chilblain. [Thomas1875]

Persian Fire

Persicus Ignis

Persicus Ignis

Persian fire; a term applied by Avicenna to that species of carbuncle which is attended with pustules and vesications. [Hoblyn1855]

Pertussis

A violent convulsive cough, returning by fits. at longer or shorter intervals; and consisting of several expirations, followed by a sonorous inspiration and whoop. The fits of coughing generally recur more frequently during the night, morning, and evening, than in the day. It is esteemed to be contagious, and attacks the young more particularly. It is rare for it to effect an individual for a second time. The duration is various, - six or eight weeks or more. Although the paroxysms are violent, it is not a dangerous disease. It may, however, give rise to other affections, as convulsions, pneumonia, etc., when the complication is very dangerous, as the cause cannot be removed. [Dunglison1868]

Hooping-cough. A contagious disease characterized by a convulsive strangulating cough, with hooping, returning by fits which are usually terminated by vomiting. [Thomas1875]

 

Whooping Cough. [Heritage]

 

Fact sheet from CDC

Information sheet from NYS Dept of Health

Information Card from the CDC

Pest

Plague

Pestilence

Plague

Pestis

Plague

Petechial Fever

A malignant fever, accompanied with livid spots on the skin; Typhus Gravior. [CancerWEB]

Pharyngitis

Inflammation of the pharynx.

Diphtheritic Pharyngitis

Diphtheria

Phenigmus

A cutaneous affection, consisting of redness diffused over the skin, without fever; Red Jaundice. [Dunglison1868]

Philippine Itch

Scabies. There are various names in vogue such as prairie itch, swamp itch, lumberman's itch, elephant itch, Ohio scratches, Texas mange, and, now, Cuban itch and Philippine itch, which are used to denominate all sorts of itching dermatoses from winter pruritus to scabies and smallpox. None of these terms has any exact meaning. They are most frequently applied to scabies, but frequently also to other itching dermatoses, like dermitis hiemalis. [Wilke1915]

Phimosis

An abnormal constriction of the foreskin that prevents it from being drawn back to uncover the glans penis. [Heritage]

Phlebitis

Inflammation of a vein; when accompanied by thrombus formation it is called thrombophlebitis. [Thomas1907]

Crural Phlebitis

Phlegmasia Alba Dolens

Phleborrhagia

Rupture of the veins. [Dunglison1868]

Phlebotomus Fever

Sandfly Fever

Phlebotomy

Incision of a vein, as for the letting of blood; Blood-letting. [Dorland]

Phlegmasia Alba Dolens

Phlebitis of the femoral vein, occasionally following parturition or an acute febrile illness; it is characterized by swelling of the leg, usually without redness. [Thomas1907]

Phlegmon

Purulent inflammation of the cellular or areolar tissue. [Webster]

Phrenitis

Phrenzy or inflammation of the brain. [Hooper1829]

Inflammation of the membranes of the brain. Meningitis [Dunglison1868]

Phthiriasis

Infestation with crab or pubic lice [Thomas1907]

Phthisis

Pulmonary consumption. It is known by emaciation, debility, cough, hectic fever, and purulent expectoration. [Hooper1843]

Consumption; pulmonary consumption, or decline; emaciation of the body, and debility, attended with a cough, hectic fever, and generally purulent expectoration. It is also termed marasmus, tabes pulmonalis, etc. [Hoblyn1855]

In a general sense, progressive emaciation. It is usually, however, restricted to phthisis pulmonalis. [Dunglison1874]

Pulmonary consumption, characterized by emaciation, debility, cough, hectic fever, and purulent expectoration. [Thomas1875]

Wasting of the frame. [Cleaveland1886]

A term formerly applied (like Consumption ) to the disease of the lung now known as Tuberculosis. [Britannica1911]

A wasting or consumption of the tissues. The term was formerly applied to many wasting diseases, but is now usually restricted to pulmonary phthisis, or Consumption. [Webster1913]

Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body. [Wordnet]

Phthisis is an archaic name for tuberculosis. [Medicinenet]

Example from an 1864 Church Record from Slovakia:

Example from an 1877 Death Certificate from England:

Phthisis Acuta

Galloping Consumption

Phthisis Florida

Phthisis Pulmonalis

Consumption of the lungs; strictly applied to the tuberculous variety. [Cleaveland1886].

Pulmonary consumption. Pulmonary tuberculosis. [Dorland]

Phthisis Tuberculosis

Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Abdominalis Phthisis

Tuberculosis affecting the mesenteric glands or the intestines. [Appleton1904]

Bronchial Phthisis

Tuberculosis of the bronchial glands. [Appleton1904]

Pulmonary Phthisis

Pulmonary Tuberculosis

Tubercular Phthisis

Phthisuria

Diabetes

Pian

Framboesia

Pica

An abnormal craving or appetite for nonfood substances, such as dirt, paint, or clay. [Heritage]

Picardy Sweat

Suette de Picardie, an epidemic disease, the principal symptoms of which were profuse sweats and a miliary eruption. Occurred between 1718 and 1804. [Dunglison1874]

Pick's Disease

A form of dementia characterized by a slowly progressive deterioration of social skills and changes in personality leading to impairment of intellect, memory, and language. [CancerWEB]

Pigeon Breast

A chest deformity marked by a projecting sternum, often occurring as a result of infantile rickets. Also called chicken breast. [Heritage]

Bleeding Piles

Hemorrhoids; tumors or enlarged veins, about the neighborhood of the anus, sometimes attended with hemorrhage and prolapsus. [Cleaveland1886].

The small, troublesome tumors or swellings about the anus and lower part of the rectum which are technically called hemorrhoids. [Wordnet]

Pinkeye

Conjunctivitis

Pinsweal

Furuncle

Pip

Syphilis

Plague

Any destructive pestilence, especially a specific acute and malignant fever, which often prevails in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, and has occurred epidemically at different times and places in the large cities of Europe. It is attended with nervous disturbance, and usually is accompanied by buboes or swellings of the inguinal or other lymphatic glands, and occasionally with carbuncles, pustules, spots, and petechia of various colors and distributed in different parts of the body. [Appleton1904].

"plague" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1010. [Webster].

Fact sheet from CDC

Fact sheet from WHO

American Plague

The yellow fever epidemic of 1793, centering in Philadelphia.

Plague of Egypt

Typhus Egyptiacus in Latin. Typhus Plague. [Hooper1822]

Black Plague

The epidemic form of bubonic plague experienced during the Middle Ages; Black Death. [Wordnet]

Bubonic Plague

Plague is a specific, inoculable, and otherwise communicable epidemic disease common to man and many of the lower animals. It is characterized by fever, the development of buboes, a rapid course, a very high mortality, and the presence of a specific bacterium in the lymphatic glands, viscera, and blood. [Manson1898]

A contagious, often fatal epidemic disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia (syn. Pasteurella) pestis, transmitted from person to person or by the bite of fleas from an infected rodent, especially a rat, and characterized by chills, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and the formation of buboes. [Heritage]

Cold  Plague

A severe form of congestive fever, seen in the Southern States. Bilious pneumonia, in which there is no reaction, has been, also, so called. [Dunglison1868].

A malignant form of bilious pneumonia. [Appleton1904].

Dancing Plague

St. Vitus' Dance

Plague in the Guts

The term by which malignant cholera was known in England in the seventeenth century. [Appleton1904]

Hunger Plague

Relapsing Fever. [Gould1916]

Pahvant Valley Plague

Tularemia. Named after Pahvant Valley, Utah, where some of the first cases were reported. [Dorland]

Pneumonic Plague

A frequently fatal form of bubonic plague in which the lungs are infected and the disease is transmissible by coughing. [Heritage]

Syrian Plague

Aleppo Boil

Plague of Venus

Lues Venerea, Syphilis. [Hooper1843]

White Plague

Tuberculosis, esp. of the lungs; Pulmonary Tuberculosis. [Webster1913].

TB sufferers appeared markedly pale. [Wikipedia].

Septicemic Plague

A usually fatal form of bubonic plague in which the bacilli are present in the bloodstream and cause toxemia. [Heritage]

Planetstruck

Sideratio

Plethora

An excess of blood in the circulatory system or in one organ or area. [Heritage]

Pleurisy

Inflammation of the pleura (membrane enveloping the lungs), usually occurring as a complication of a disease such as pneumonia, accompanied by accumulation of fluid in the pleural cavity, chills, fever, and painful breathing and coughing. [CivilWarMed]

Example from an 1864 Church Record from Slovakia:

Bastard Pleurisy

It is known by a dry cough, a quick pulse, and a difficulty of lying on the affected side, which last does not always happen in the true pleurisy. [Buchan1785]

Bilious Pleurisy

Pleurisy accompanied with bilious symptoms; the effect of duodentitis or duodenohepatitis; Bilious Pneumonia. [Dunglison1868]

Chronic Pleurisy

Pleurisy

Head Pleurisy

A ridiculous term, occasionally used by the vulgar, in the Southern States especially, for bilious pneumonia before the pneumonitic phenomena are developed, and whilst the head is prominently affected. Bilious Pneumonia. [Dunglison1868]

Side Pleurisy

Pleurisy on one side, usually the left. Pleurisy is generally unilateral. [Taylor1901]

Spurious Pleurisy

Bastard Pleurisy. [Buchan1785]

Rheumatism, occurring in the muscles of the diaphram. [Thomas1875]

Pleuritis

Pleurisy

Pleuropneumonia

Inflammation of the pleura and lungs; pneumonia aggravated by pleurisy. [Heritage]

Pneumonia

Inflammation of the lungs. The symptoms of this disease are fever, accompanied with pain in the thorax, which is aggravated by coughing, a quick and hard pulse, with more or less difficulty of breathing. [Thomas1875]

An acute or chronic disease marked by inflammation of the lungs and caused by viruses, bacteria, or other microorganisms and sometimes by physical and chemical irritants. [Heritage].

"pneumonia" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1550. [Webster]

Atypical Pneumonia

Mycoplasma Infection

Bilious Pneumonia

Inflammation of the lungs, accompanied by gastric fever, and not uncommonly by typhoid symptoms. [Dunglison1868]

Broncho-Pneumonia

Pneumonia involving many relatively small areas of lung tissue called also bronchial pneumonia, lobular pneumonia. [Merriam Webster]

Pneumonia characterized by acute inflammation of the walls of the bronchioles. [Wordnet]

Croupous Pneumonia

Or ordinary pneumonia, is an acute affection characterized by sudden onset with a chill, high fever, rapid course, and sudden decline; -- also called lobar pneumonia, from its affecting a whole lobe of the lung at once. [Webster]

Double Pneumonia

Pneumonia affecting both lungs.

Fibroid Pneumonia

Is an inflammation of the interstitial connective tissue lying between the lobules of the lungs, and is very slow in its course, producing shrinking and atrophy of the lungs. [Webster]

Lobar Pneumonia

Pneumonia affecting one or more lobes of the lung; commonly due to streptococcal infection. [Wordnet].

Example from a 1909 Canadian Death Certificate:

Lobular Pneumonia

Broncho-Pneumonia

Walking Pneumonia

Mycoplasma Infection

Pockmark

A pit like scar left on the skin by smallpox or another eruptive disease. [Heritage]

Podagra

Gout in the joints of the foot; applied also to gout in other parts of body. [CancerWEB]

Podagra Aberrans

Gout does not always confine itself to the joints. It may attack the internal organs. [Dunglison1868]

Poker Back

Spondylitis Deformans

Polio

Poliomyelitis. "polio" was first used: 1931. [Webster]

Information Card from the CDC

Poliomyelitis, Acute

A highly infectious viral disease that chiefly affects children and, in its acute forms, causes inflammation of motor neurons of the spinal cord and brainstem, leading to paralysis, muscular atrophy, and often deformity. Through vaccination, the disease is preventable. Also called infantile paralysis, Polio. [Heritage]

Information sheet from NYS Dept of Health

Fact sheet from WHO

Example from an 1927 Death Certificate from Ohio:

Polish Disease

Syphilis. The Russians called it the Polish disease.

Polypus

A name given to tumors, which occur in mucous membranes especially; and which have been compared to certain zoophytes. [Dunglison1868]

Polyuria

Excessive passage of urine, as in diabetes. [Heritage]

Ponos

Kala-Azar

Porcupine Disease

Ichthyosis; fish-skin disease. [Hoblyn1855]

Porphyria

A genetic abnormality of metabolism causing abdominal pains and mental confusion. [Wordnet]

Porphyria means purple urine. [Cartwright]

Porrigo

Ringworm of the scalp; scald head; also termed favus and tinea. [Thomas1875]

Portuguese Disease

Syphilis. The Japanese called it either the Portuguese or Chinese disease.

Pose

Coryza

Postime

Abscess

Pott's Boss

Pott's Disease

Pott's Disease

TB of the spine with destruction of vertebrae resulting in curvature of the spine. [Webster]

Pott's Paraplegia

Late complication of Pott's disease. [Webster]

Pox

The vulgar name of syphilis; formerly called great pox, to distinguish it from Variola, or small pox, on account of larger size of its blotches. [Hoblyn1855]

Prairie Dig

Prairie Itch

An affection of the skin attended with intense itching, which is observed in the Northern and Western United States; -- also called swamp itch, winter itch. [Webster]

Premature Birth

Abortion