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Middlemarch vocabulary

8 pathology terms (diseases and disease symptoms)

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pathosis

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erysipelas: synonyms: St. Anthonyʼs fire, ignis sacer ???

tags: [pathosis]

► definition

Definition:

a febrile disease accompanied with a diffused inflammation of the skin, which, starting usually from a single point, spreads gradually over its surface. It is usually regarded as contagious, and often occurs epidemically.

^{Noah Webster. Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)}
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Most cases are due to a Streptococcus pyogenes infection.
^{photo: By CDC/Dr. Thomas F. Sellers/Emory University,Public Domain,}
^{https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6898976}

► uses

Uses:

The menstrual blood of a woman rubbed on her (or if she walks over it) is thought to keep her from conception; yet rubbed on it alleviates the pains of gout and erysipelas.

Pedanius Dioscorides; (translated by Tess Anne Osbaldeston). De Materia Medica (originally published around 60 AD). IBIDIS Press, Johannesburg, South Africa.

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The surgical wards were never free from erysipelas. There were only two scalpels and not one thermometer in the whole hospital;

Anton Chekhov. Ward No. 6

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"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and yaller janders*, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all."

Mark Twain. Huckleberry Finn

^{*yellow jaundice}