Genealogy Chat

Just wondered if anybody had any info on inflammatory fever. My gx5 grandfather died of it in July 1842 and I just wondered whether there was a modern day equivalent. Having googled it the symptons sounds pretty horrendous and obviously can be fatal but I'm just a little confused as most articles about it refer to it being caused by going from extreme cold to extreme heat. Understandable if this was Dec but July...??

Hi Alison, I remember once someone on this board giving a great web site of all these old medical terms but I can´t find it. It would seem that the two terms together seem to indicate there was some primary inflammation, e.g. an open ulcer perhaps or some sort of wound which became inflamed and infected, and as there was no antibiotics back then, this infection would spread through the body causing high fever as the body tried to fight off the infection. If your g.f. was old when he died then probably his immune system was weak and he was unable to fight it. I think the going from extreme cold to heat would refer to body temperature and not the weather. Many conditions back then could result in this happening, even young people died after a cut finger etc. Death could occur fairly quickly, so let´s hope your g.dad didn´t suffer too much.