phthisis
/ˈ(f)θʌɪsɪs
/ /ˈtʌɪsɪs/noun [mass noun] Medicine, archaic
Pulmonary tuberculosis or a similar progressive wasting disease.He learned to recognize pneumonia, bronchiectasis, pleurisy, emphysema, pneumothorax, phthisis, and other lung diseases from the sounds he heard with his stethoscope....
- Death rates from silicosis, miners' phthisis, and tubercular diseases were very high on the Rand.
- In fact he had died there from phthisis on 9 December 1886: the death certificate describes him as a ‘musician’.
Derivatives
phthisic
/ adjective ...- It was said that the urine of phthisic patients is "high coloured and deposits a brawny red sediment."
- Shelleys tribute expressed what would become the central metaphor of consumption in the 19th century, the idea that the phthisic body is consumed from within by its passions.
phthisical
- If there be a special or specific hereditary predisposition - we should find the children of such parents phthisical in greater proportion than the children of parents whose debility arises from other causes.
- The sputum of phthisical patients is the vehicle by which the tubercle gains access to the air.
Origin
Mid 16th century: via Latin from Greek, from phthinein 'to decay'.