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Cloud-Fog Disease Words:
“antityphoid” to “typhus”

Words that include: typho-, typh-, -typhoidal, -typhus,
-typhic
(Greek: to smoke; smoke, mist, vapor, cloud, fog; used exclusively in medicine as a reference to fever accompanied by stupor or a clouding of the mind resulting from the fever caused by a severe-infectious disease)



antityphoid:
Preventive or curative for typhoid fever.
meningotyphoid:
Typhoid fever marked by symptoms of irritation or inflammation of the cerebral or spinal meninges.
paratyphoid:
An acute infectious disease with symptoms and lesions resembling those of typhoid fever, though milder in character; associated with the presence of the paratyphoid organism of which at least three varieties (types A, B, and C) have been described.
pleurotyphoid:
Typhoid fever in which the early stage is masked by the physical signs of pleurisy.
posttyphoid:
Occurring as a sequel of typhoid fever.
typhinia:
Relapsing fever.
typhoid:
1. Resembling or characteristic of typhus; applied to a class of febrile diseases exhibiting symptoms similar to those of typhus, or to such symptoms themselves, especially to a state of delirious stupor occurring in certain fevers.
2. Typhoid fever: a specific eruptive fever (formerly supposed to be a variety of typhus), characterized by intestinal inflammation and ulceration; more distinctively, and now more usually, called enteric fever.
3. Typhoid Mary, nickname of Mary Mallon (d. 1938), an Irish-born cook who transmitted typhoid fever in the U.S.A. Also figuratively, a transmitter of undesirable opinions, sentiments, etc.

Typhoid Mary, an Innocent Killer

  • Not long after Mary Mallon was hired as a summer cook by a wealthy New York family in 1906, six people in the household came down with typhoid fever.
  • George A. Soper, a sanitary engineer with the New York City Department of Health, was called in to find the reasons.
  • When he learned that Mary left the family three weeks after the onset of the illness, Soper, who knew of the new German theory of disease “carriers”, traced her working history: she had taken off after typhoid outbreaks in at least five other households.
  • When the medical detective finally found her, she attacked him with a serving fork.
  • It took five policemen to subdue her.
  • She insisted she was innocent of any crime, but her body was found to be continually breeding and discharging the deadly bacteria Salmonella typhosa.
  • She was confined for two years in an isolated hospital in New York’s East River.
  • Legal battles were waged on her behalf, and she was finally released with the condition that she stay away from food services.
  • Instead of following the orders of the court, Mary immediately went back to cooking and eluded detectives for five years.
  • When apprehended again, she was confined to the hospital for the rest of her life.
  • She had a cottage to herself and worked in the laboratory, but she always ate alone.
  • Mary died as the result of a stroke in 1938 at the age of 70.
  • During her exposure periods, she had infected at least 57 people and caused three known deaths as a carrier of the typhoid germs.
—Based on an article in
Strange Stories, Amazing Facts of America’s Past,
published by the Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1989, page 184.

typhoidal:
Pertaining to or characteristic of typhoid fever; resembling or having the character of typhoid fever.
typhomalarial:
Having symptoms of both typhoid and malarial fevers.
typhomania:
A muttering delerium characteristic of that in typhoid fever and typhus.
typhopneumonia:
1. Pneumonia occurring in typhoid fever.
2. Pneumonia with typhoid symptoms.
typhous:
Pertaining to or having the character of typhus.
typhus:
A group of acute infectious and contagious diseases, caused by rickettsiae (bacteria) that are transmitted by arthropods (fleas, ticks, mites, and lice), and occurring in two principal forms: epidemic typhus and endemic (murine) typhus Also called jail, camp, or ship fever.

The word typhus comes from Greek typhos, smoke, vapor, vanity, conceit, was used in early English from Late Latin typhus, to mean pride. Dropped in the 17th century, it was revived (or taken afresh from the Greek) at the end of the 18th century to mean a fever that clouded the mind. The more familiar typhoid fever simply means, like typhus; it was long supposed to be a form of the other disease; but it is now more accurately called enteric fever—enteric, from Greek enerikos, from enteron, intestine, “inner”.

Epidemic typhus is considered a particularly prevalent disease where unsanitary conditions exist. It often develops on shipboard, in army camps, and where living conditions are unfavoable and where there is an over congestion of people. The disease is considered rare in the U.S.

The onset of symptoms is sudden. Severe headache, pain in the back and limbs, and extreme prostration occur. Fever rises rapidly, often reaching 104 to 105 degrees F (40 to 40.6 degrees C) in two to three days, remains high for about ten days; and then falls by the time of the crisis. The pulse is rapid, weak, and the tongue is tremulous and may be covered with a whitish fur; in severe cases, it becomes black and rolled up like a ball in the back of the mouth. The patient demonstrates stupor, delirium, muscle twitching, and picking at the bedclothes.