You know all of the names – measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, whooping cough, etc.
But do you know why they used to call 10-day measles?
And which disease causes a 100-day cough?
Alternative Names for Vaccine Preventable Diseases
Back in the day, when these diseases were more common, they used much more descriptive terms and nicknames, in addition to their official names.
Why was measles known as 10-day measles?
Because there was also a 3-day measles!
| Measles | Rubella |
| 10-day measles | 3-day measles |
| red measles | German measles |
| rubeola |
Unfortunately, 10-day measles made you feel miserable for 10 days!
Can you guess which disease was known to cause a 100-day cough?
That’s right, it’s whooping cough or pertussis.
“I honestly felt like it was never going to go away. The doctor told me it was 100 day cough, so I was counting the days while Googling to see if there was anything that could help. I tried everything, you name it, I tried it, and nothing worked. It came to 120 days and I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t gone. I then researched and found that babies take longer to get over whooping cough.”
Fern’s Story – Whooping Cough
Fortunately, the cough doesn’t typically last that long if you are vaccinated and still get pertussis.
What do they call rabies?
Mad dog disease.
But that’s an easy one.
Which disease was known as “the Strangling Angel?”
“The breathing became much more difficult, with a kind of rattling stertor, as if the patient was actually strangling, the voice being exceeding hoarse and hollow, exactly resembling that from venereal ulcers in the fauces. This noise, in speaking and breathing, was so peculiar, that any person in the least conversant with the disease might easily know it by this odd noise; from whence, indeed, the Spanish physicians gave it the name of garrotillo, expressing the noise such make as are strangling with a rope.”
Edward Headlam Greenhow on Diphtheria
How about “The Crippler?”
The “Speckled Monster?”
We forget these names, because we don’t see these diseases anymore.
“…for those trained in pediatrics in the 1970s, Hib (Haemophilus influenzae type b) was a horror.”
Walter Orenstein
Do you remember that measles was called a “harmless killer?”
Be sure to think about how these now vaccine-preventable diseases got their nicknames before you think about skipping or delaying your child’s vaccines.
More on Alternative Names for Vaccine Preventable Diseases
- VAXOPEDIA – Personal Stories About Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
- VAXOPEDIA – Do You Know What Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Look Like?
- VAXOPEDIA – Polio Survivor Stories
- VAXOPEDIA – Remembering Measles
- VAXOPEDIA – Remembering When Everyone Had Measles
- VAXOPEDIA – The Myth That Measles Isn’t Deadly
- VAXOPEDIA – Did Better Hygiene and Sanitation Get Rid of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases?
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- Diphtheria – ‘The strangling angel’ of children.
- Iditarod: Celebrating the “Great Race of Mercy” to Stop Diphtheria Outbreak in Alaska
- Lost Lessons of the Strangling Angel
- Haunted by the Strangling Angel (of History)
- The story of polio
- Polio: Combating the Crippler
- Connaught Labs, Polio Research & Conquering “The Crippler”
- FILM REVIEW; Once a Fear Beyond Fear Itself
- A Paralyzing Fear
- Smallpox: ‘The Speckled Monster’
- Fern’s Story – Whooping Cough