Archaic medical terms

By Nancy Battick

One puzzling thing genealogists sometimes encounter is the cause of death listed on old certificates. Accustomed as we are to modern medical terminology, archaic medical terms can be frustrating. 

What, for example, is bad blood? Or bilious fever, black fever, cholera morbus, congestive chills or shaking palsy? These and dozens of others appear on death records into the 20th century.

Complicating matters is that the physicians of over a hundred years ago lacked today’s modern tests or techniques. That means a physician would often list their “best guess” as to a cause of death, particularly if the physician was called in at the last moment.  In a time when people often used folk remedies for illness and a doctor’s attendance was a rare event, physicians often had no concrete knowledge of their patient’s medical history or symptoms. I suspect this led to many “it looks like” diagnoses. 

For genealogists interpreting what physicians thought they detected in a patient can be challenging, to say the least. When you encounter a term you don’t recognize such as the ones listed above, what can you do to narrow down what an ancestor might have died from?

Sometimes it isn’t hard to figure out a cause of death. I had one ancestor who fell off his roof and died a couple of days later. It was definitely internal injuries, most likely a ruptured spleen.  In the case of industrial accidents, death certificates usually give enough details so you can determine the form of the accident. 

There are some aids to assist you about unfamiliar causes of death and they’re available thanks to the internet. Using your cell phone, tablet or laptop, you can easily access sites with details on medical terminology no longer in use. 

Rudy’s List of Archaic Medical Terms (www.antiquusmorbus.com) is a tried-and-true authoritative source. Family Search (familysearch.wiki) is another good source. There’s  a list on familytreemagazine.com, and Wikipedia also has a list of deprecated medical terms. Cyndislist.com has a list of archaic medical dictionaries, and you can also find lists of medical terms for other languages such as German. 

All these sources are free to access, and you can do it right from your home office or armchair. 

The sample causes of death I started this column with are as follows:  bad blood equals syphilis; bilious fever could be typhoid, malaria, hepatitis or some other form of fever; black fever meant an acute infection, high fever, and red skin lesions; cholera morbus was acute gastroenteritis with severe cramps, diarrhea and vomiting; congestive chills was probably malaria; and shaking palsy was Parkinson’s.  

 If you encounter “shock” as a diagnosis it was universally used to mean a stroke. 

I hope this list of references will be of help to you in your research and in interpreting the meaning of older medical terms. Keep in mind, though, that sometimes it was only a doctor’s best guess as to the cause of death of a patient. The world of medicine has changed dramatically just in my lifetime.

Columnist Nancy Battick of Dover-Foxcroft has researched genealogy for over 30 years. She is past president of the Maine Genealogical Society, author of several genealogical articles and co-transcribed the Vital Records of Dover-Foxcroft.  Nancy holds an MA in History from UM and lives in DF with her husband, Jack, another avid genealogist. Reader emails are welcome at nbattick@roadrunner.com.