Scottish fact of the week: Scots terms for diseases
If you recognised any of those terms then you, or your family must be Scottish, for those of you that didn’t here’s a handy guide to Scots terms for diseases:
Ablepsy - Blindness
Apoplexy - Paralysis due to a stroke
Bellythraw - A common term for Colic.
Blabs - Chickenpox or nettlerash (A blab is a bubble or a drop of liquid)
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Hide AdBoat cough or stranger’s cold - Terms used on St Kilda for either the common cold or influenza, outbreaks of which would follow the arrival of a vessel from the Outer Hebrides.
Branks - Mumps
Canine Madness - Rabies, hydrophobia
Chilblain - Swelling of extremities caused by the cold
Croup - Laryngitis, diphtheria, or strep throat
The good wife- Smallpox
Grandgore or glengore - Syphilis (From Old French, grand gorre - great pox)
Gulsoch - Jaundice (gule for yellow and suht for disease)
Haingles -Influenza (to haingle is to hang around feebly)
Inbred fever - Various chest diseases, including bronchitis and tuberculosis
Jaw pish - Urethitis
Kinkhoste - whooping cough (to kinke is to suffer a coughing fit)
Knot in the pudding - a strangled hernia
MacDonald’s disease - A kind of chest infection that was supposedly only curable by the touch of a member of the MacDonald Clan, it is not understood where these mythical healing powers came from or where the legend arose.
Meserlie, meselne or messall - Leprosy (from the Latin miser meaning wretched)
Mort Cauld - A severe cold
Nirls - Measels (A nirl is a small lump)
Phtisik or teesick - Any wasting disease
Ripple - Gonorrhoea
Rose Cold - Hay fever or allergy
Rush fever - Scarlet fever (A rush is a rash)
Scaw - Any scaly skin disease.
Screws - Rheumatism
Scrumpox - Skin disease, impetigo
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Hide AdStourie lungs - Name given in Fife and the Lothians to pneumoconiosis, aka black lung, a disease miners suffered from exposure to inhalation of coaldust.
Sweating Sickness - Infectious and fatal disease common to Scotland in 15th century
Worm Toothache, colic or any other ailment believed to be caused by a worm.
Ydrope or ydropesie - Dropsy.