Glossary of Archaic Medical Terms, Diseases and Causes of Death

Found this really useful website with a searchable database of great use to genealogists and family historians. It helps to understand the terminology used on death certificates and other documents for causes of death. It also features some images of original documents (example below). Hope you find it a useful addition to your family history research, it has certainly helped me uncover some mysteries.

The site was developed by Rudy Schmidt and is being updated and added to. It also features terms in many languages and concentrates on English, German and French. Below is text extracted from Rudy's site explaining his objective:

Antiquus Morbus is a collection of archaic medical terms and their old and modern definitions. The primary focus of this web site is to help decipher the Causes of Death found on Mortality Lists, Certificates of Death and Church Death Records from the 19th century and earlier. This web site will be updated often and as new information is received. My intention is to collect and record old medical terms in all European languages. The English and German lists are the most extensive to date.



Many thanks to Rudy for his hard work in making this information available to all genealogists out there. Hope you find it interesting (not too morbid).

http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishA.htm