Sometimes, your genealogy research can lead you directly into a mystery. You finally found the death certificate for your ancestor. Or, you located a newspaper clipping that shows the obituary of your ancestor. You can read what disease your ancestor died from, but don’t have a clue what that disease actually was. How can you learn more? RootsWeb has an excellent list of the old names for diseases.
You’ve been keeping track of the health issues of your ancestors, in order to put together a medical form of your family tree. The problem is that your ancestor died from a disease that you have never heard of. What on earth did that person die from? It might be a disease that you would recognize, if you heard it called by the name we use for it today. Understanding what a relative died from can reveal more about what heritable diseases run in your family, and can give you a better understanding of what you might be able to do to improve your health.
RootsWeb has a handy list of old disease names. The list is in alphabetical order, which makes it easy to scan through and find the strange sounding disease you are looking for. Each one is followed by what we would call that disease today. This list is an excellent resource, and can help you solve the mystery of what your ancestor really died from.
There were a lot of diseases that were once referred to as fevers. Winter Fever is what we would call Pneumonia today. Stranger’s Fever is another name for Yellow Fever. (Yellow Fever was also called Yellowjacket, Bronze John, and Dock Fever). Putrid Fever is what we would know as Diptheria today.
Puking Fever was also called Milk sickness, (and milk sickness was also called Sloes). What is milk sickness? It is the disease you get if you drink the milk from cattle that ate poisonous weeds. There also was something called Milk Fever, which came from drinking contaminated milk. Contaminated by what? I’ve no idea, but presumably not from poisonous weeds.
If your ancestor died from Spotted Fever, it means he or she died from what we would call typhus or meningitis today. Typhus was also referred to as Ship Fever, Camp Fever, and Jail Fever. Scarlet Fever was one that included a red rash. Malaria was once called Remitting Fever. Pneumonia used to be called Lung Fever. Green Fever, which was also called Green Sickness, is what we call Anemia today. Mono, or Mononucleosis, used to be called Glandular Fever. Enteric Fever was also called Typhoid Fever. Can you guess what Day Fever was? It meant a fever that lasted only one day, and may have included a lot of sweating. Day Fever was also called Diary Fever.
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