HERB - colds and flu - terminology

[Sue Rogers]

Actually, at one time I found a reference to "quinsy" as a term for
respiratory infection, but I have not been able to substantiate that. 
Also, the term ague often applied to malaria, but it was also used in a
more general sense for alternating chills and fever, and could have been
used to describe influenza.  Remember that influenza was a serious
disease, frequently fatal (turned into pneumonia).  As recently as the
first quarter of the 1900's there were serious flu epidemics that killed
numbers of people.  I wonder if some of the "plague"s that were not the
Black Death might have been flu epidemics.  Comsumption is considered to
be TB, but again the term was used in a more general sense for a chronic
lung condition, and might apply to any long-lasting respiratory problem.

If you can find a copy of Gerard's Greate Herball (which Dover reprints,
though it is expensive) he has an index by disease in the back.  Among
the conditions he lists that might apply are: aches, agues (multiple
kinds thereof), several prolems with breathing, catarrhs, problems of the
chest, good against colds and hoarseness (also several entries for "cold
diseases of ..."), several entries for coughs, fevers, flegm (phlegm),
several entries of "good for the lungs", pleurisy (technically, an
infection of the pleura surrounding the lungs, again I think the term was
used in a more general sense)...  sorry, I can't take more of that
typeface tonight, but I think that is most of the entries that would
likely apply.

I don't think they had consistent diagnostic criteria like we do today,
but I do think they recognized different diseases, and tried to treat
them, not just the symptoms - at least to some extent.  Because Gerard
talks about different kinds of ague and has different treatments for some
of them.  So to some extent I disagree slightly with jasmine's earlier
comment.  But on the whole, I agree that the approach would have been
more symptomatic treatment (still what we do today for colds...)

Hope this is at least marginally useful.
Suzanna, the herbalist, Barony of the Steppes, Kingdom of Ansteorra
(Dallas. TX)   


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