RHEUMATISM n.
A general disease characterized by painful, often multiple, local inflammations, usually affecting the joints and muscles, but also extending sometimes to the deeper organs, as the heart. Inflammatory rheumatism (Med.), acute rheumatism attended with fever, and attacking usually the larger joints, which become swollen,…
SCROFULA n.
y those of the neck, and marked by a tendency to the development of chronic intractable inflammations of the skin, mucous membrane, bones, joints, and other parts, and by a diminution in the power of resistance to disease or injury and the capacity for recovery. Scrofula is now generally held to be tuberculous in chara…
SOFTENING a.
al softening (Med.), a localized softening of the brain substance, due to hemorrhage or inflammation. Three varieties, distinguished by their color and representing different stages of the morbid process, are known respectively as red, yellow, and white, softening.