This version of the Illness chart has been usurped by a new version with over 150 illness term equivalencies. Get it at:
https://theancestorhunt.com/blog/old-illnesses-and-modern-equivalents/
When doing our genealogy research, whether looking at death certificates, newspaper articles, or other sources, we are often faced with different terminology for things. Nowhere is that more evident than in medical terminology.
Whether the term is written in an old letter, a newspaper article, or an official document, we are often faced with the challenge of finding out what that term means, for our understanding, but more importantly for documenting the cause of death.
I have put together some of the more common terms, some of which were fatal, some not.
Below are several sources of terminology equivalences that you can use as reference material.
Medical Terminology Resources
- Historical Names of Diseases and Conditions
- Old Time Disease Names
- Old Time Illnesses, Diseases, and Medical Terms
- Old Time Diseases
- Old Disease Names and Their Modern Definition
- Old Disease Names
- Old Time Medical Terms
Download the Quicksheet PDF
To obtain the one-page Quicksheet pdf for easy reference of these maladies, you can download it by clicking on the Download button below.
For all the previously published Quick Reference Guides, click on QuickSheets.
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5 replies on “80 Old Time Illnesses and Their Current Names”
The 40 old diseases pdf download is flagged as a security risk on my browser (Firefox)
That’s odd. Hundreds of these have been downloaded without an issue. I use Chrome myself. In fact I have created over 40 of these downloadable Quick Reference Guides in pdf and this is the first time an issue has been reported in two years.
I have not been able to download it either…..I use Chrome
German Measles – Rubella
comes up in Agatha Christie and Mom didn’t know that, so I figure worth a comment.
as for the pdf download link coming up security risk …. I’ve had that come up a lot on other sites….
although this one is kind of heavy on the popups.
then again chrome is sometimes a huge memory hog and it lags, so not sure which is which