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A disease communicable by contact with a patient suffering from it, or with some secretion of, or object touched by, such a patient. Most such diseases have already been proved to be germ diseases, and their communicability depends on the transmission of the living germs. Many germ diseases are not contagious, some sp…

a child; esp. a young woman; a maiden. "Stella is no chicken." Swift. Chicken cholera, a contagious disease of fowls; - - so called because first studied during the prevalence of a cholera epidemic in France. It has no resemblance to true cholera.

Communicable by contact, by a virus, or by a bodily exhalation; catching; as, a contagious disease.

A very dangerous contagious disease in which the air passages, and especially the throat, become coated with a false membrane, produced by the solidification of an inflammatory exudation. Cf. Group.

A contagious disease of horses, associated with painful ulcerating enlargements, esp. upon the head and limbs. It is of the same nature as glanders, and is often fatal. Called also farcin, and farcimen.

Sometimes, as distinguished from contagious disease, such a disease communicated by germs carried in the air or water, and thus spread without contact with the patient, as measles.

tal, or pesthouse for the reception of diseased persons, particularly those affected with contagious diseases.

ening a fatal issue; virulent; as, malignant diphtheria. Malignant pustule (Med.), a very contagious disease, transmitted to man from animals, characterized by the formation, at the point of reception of the virus, of a vesicle or pustule which first enlarges and then breaks down into an unhealthy ulcer. It is marked b…

m which is supposed to act like a ferment in causing or propagating certain infectious or contagious diseases; a pathogenic bacterial organism.

A contagious disease of fowls, characterized by hoarseness, discharge from the nostrils and eyes, and an accumulation of mucus in the mouth, forming a "scale" on the tongue. By some the term pip is restricted to this last symptom, the disease being called roup by them.

y days, during which a ship arriving in port, and suspected of being infected a malignant contagious disease, is obliged to forbear all intercourse with the shore; hence, such restraint or inhibition of intercourse; also, the place where infected or prohibited vessels are stationed.

an herb (Jasione montana) having much the appearance of scabious. -- Sheep pox (Med.), a contagious disease of sheep, characterixed by the development of vesicles or pocks upon the skin. -- Sheep scabious. (Bot.) Same as Sheep's bit. -- Sheep shears, shears in which the blades form the two ends of a steel bow, by th…

A contagious disease, endemic in Scotland, resembling the yaws. It is marked by ulceration of the throat and nose and by pustules and soft fungous excrescences upon the surface of the body. In the Orkneys the name is applied to the itch. [Written also sivvens.]