Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Wednesday Wordage...in memoriam, I suppose

I was saddened to hear of the death of Richard Sher, host/co-creator of one of my favorite radio shows, "Says You."  I hope the show will go on; it brightened my weekends (and enriched my vocabulary--too often I find myself describing a situation as a cacafuego, a word learned from the show).

Here's a collection of words describing medical conditions, mostly archaic.  What are the conditions?

1.  Quinsy
2.  Lumbago
3.  St. Vitus' Dance
4.  Dropsy
5.  Yaws
6.  Ague
7.  Membranous Croup
8.  White Death (aka phthisis, aka consumption)
9.  Tertiary Fever
10.  Fantods
11.  St. Anthony's Fire
12.  Picardy Sweats

Any other suggestions?

3 comments:

  1. Nancy from Terra, in PortlandMay 5, 2015 at 12:29 PM

    Quaternary fever comes to mind. Too easy, I admit. How about lues?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm guessing that Quaternary fever is another malaria sp...and I'm stumped on "lues." I'll run it by the Real Doctor.

      Delete
    2. the Real Doctor got it before I finished spelling it, and corrected my pronunciation to boot. I should have known it, given its significance in history of Western medicine.

      Delete