Medical Terminology beginning with the letter T

Tabes mesenterica – Tuberculosis of the mesenteric glands in children, resulting in digestive derangement and wasting of the body.
Teething – The entire process which results in the eruption of the teeth. Nineteenth-century medical reports stated that infants were more prone to disease at the time of teething. Symptoms were restlessness, fretfulness, convulsions, diarrhea, and painful and swollen gums. The latter could be relieved by lancing over the protruding tooth. Often teething was reported as a cause of death in infants. Perhaps they became susceptible to infections, especially if lancing was performed without antisepsis. Another explanation of teething as a cause of death is that infants were often weaned at the time of teething; perhaps they then died from drinking contaminated milk, leading to an infection, or from malnutrition if watered-down milk was given.
Tetanus – An infectious, often-fatal disease caused by a specific bacterium, Clostridium tetani, that enters the body through wounds; characterized by respiratory paralysis, high fever, and tonic spasms and rigidity of the voluntary muscles, especially those of the neck and lower jaw. Synonyms: trismus, lockjaw.
Thrombosis – Blood clot inside blood vessel.
Thrush – A disease characterized by whitish spots and ulcers on the membranes of the mouth, tongue, and fauces caused by a parasitic fungus, Candida albicans. Thrush usually affects sick, weak infants and elderly individuals in poor health. Now it is a common complication from excessive use of broad-spectrum antibiotics or cortisone treatment. Synonyms: aphthae, sore mouth, aphthous stomatitis.
Thyrotoxicosis – A disease affecting the thyroid gland.
Tick fever – Rocky mountain spotted fever.
Toxemia (of pregnancy) – see Eclampsia.
Trench mouth – Painful ulcers found along gum line, caused by poor nutrition and poor hygiene.
Trismus nascentium/neonatorum – A form of tetanus seen only in infants, almost invariably in the first five days of life, probably due to infection of the umbilical stump.
Tussis convulsiva – Whooping cough.
Typhoid fever – An infectious, often-fatal, febrile disease, usually occurring in the summer months, characterized by intestinal inflammation and ulceration caused by the bacterium Salmonella typhi, which is usually introduced by food or drink. Symptoms include prolonged hectic fever, malaise, transient characteristic skin rash (rose spots), abdominal pain, enlarged spleen, slowness of heart rate, delirium, and low white-blood cell count. The name came from the disease’s similarity to typhus (see below). Synonym: enteric fever.
Typhus – An acute, infectious disease caused by several micro-organism species of Rickettsia (transmitted by lice and fleas) and characterized by acute prostration, high fever, depression, delirium, headache, and a peculiar eruption of reddish spots on the body. The epidemic or classic form is louse borne; the endemic or murine is flea borne. Synonyms: typhus fever, malignant fever (in the 1850s), jail fever, hospital fever, ship fever, putrid fever, brain fever, bilious fever, spotted fever, petechial fever, camp fever.

4 Responses to Medical Terminology beginning with the letter T

  1. wayne says:

    what is >thermofuge<…my newspaper sugests it is a "plaster" on the chest…–?????????

    • genealogy-quest says:

      Thermofuge was the name of a kaolin clay and glycerine poultice that was usually applied to the the chest and covered with a bandage or other cloth to reduce congestion.

  2. Priscilla says:

    What is Tetter? From the mid 1800’s

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