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The Color Purple vocabulary
42 vocabulary words, including people, places, music, artists, etc.
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African fever
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synonyms: relapsing fever ???
tags: [pathosis]
► definition
Definition:a vector-borne disease caused by infection with certain bacteria in the genus Borrelia, which is transmitted through the bites of lice or soft-bodied ticks (genus Ornithodoros).Most people who are infected develop sickness between 5 and 15 days after they are bitten. The symptoms may include a sudden fever, chills, headaches, muscle or joint aches, and nausea. A rash may also occur. These symptoms usually continue for 2 to 9 days, then disappear. This cycle may continue for several weeks if the person is not treated.[...]Louse-borne relapsing fever occurs in epidemics amid poor living conditions, famine and war in the developing world. It is currently prevalent in Ethiopia and Sudan.Mortality rate is 1% with treatment and 30–70% without treatment. Poor prognostic signs include severe jaundice, severe change in mental status, severe bleeding and a prolonged QT interval on ECG.Lice that feed on infected humans acquire the Borrelia organisms that then multiply in the gut of the louse. When an infected louse feeds on an uninfected human, the organism gains access when the victim crushes the louse or scratches the area where the louse is feeding. B. recurrentis infects the person via mucous membranes and then invades the bloodstream. No non-human, animal reservoir exists.Tick-borne relapsing fever is found primarily in Africa, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Asia, and certain areas of Canada and the western United States. Other relapsing infections are acquired from other Borrelia species, which can be spread from rodents, and serve as a reservoir for the infection, by a tick vector.[...]Relapsing fever is easily treated with a one- to two-week-course of antibiotics, and most people improve within 24 hours. Complications and death due to relapsing fever are rare.text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
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Uses:
Meanwhile, [she] has been very ill with African fever. Many missionaries in the past have died from it.
Alice Walker. The Color Purple, p.172 (1982)
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But, at length, a violent pain in my loins, accompanied by a swimming head, warned me that the African fever held me in its dreaded gripe. In two days I was delirious. Ormond visited me; but I knew him not, and in my madness, called on Esther, accompanying the name with terms of endearment. This, I was told, stirred the surprise and jealousy of the Mongo, who forthwith assailed the matron of his harem with a torrent of inquiries and abuse.
Brantz Mayer. Captain Canot; Or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver (1854)
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[The portrait] was taken on his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from the fever of the country.
Charles Dickens. Bleak House
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