Need to define this Victorian cause of death: "phithisis eutenca"!

August 6, 2013 10:37 PM

I am entering causes of death into a database. On one of the death certificates from 1901 it lists "phithisis eutenca". Any ideas on what this could be? Google was no good to me. ???
posted by Tchad to Science & Nature (6 answers total)

Best answer: Phthisis?
posted by Marauding Ennui at 10:43 PM on August 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "Phithisis" could be a misspelling of "Phthisis," which is usually tuberculosis.
posted by KathrynT at 10:43 PM on August 6, 2013

Response by poster: Perfect. That makes total sense given the context.

Thanks, guys. I don't know why google gave me no "Did you mean..." options.
posted by Tchad at 10:49 PM on August 6, 2013

Sometimes you have better luck prompting the "Did you mean...?" option if you break apart phrases into individual words. If I Google just the misspelled word, then it jumps right to results for "phthisis" including a definition from Dictionary.com.
posted by cribcage at 11:10 PM on August 6, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: "eutenca" is almost certainly a misreading/typo for "enterica", indicating that the phthisis (wasting away/consumption) was primarily, or at least co-morbidly, intestinal.
posted by dhartung at 11:57 PM on August 6, 2013 [8 favorites]

Response by poster: It wouldn't have helped with this question and the bad Googling, but I did stumble on this little gem when I looked it up spelled properly without quotes.

My life just got a wee bit easier. Thanks, guys!
posted by Tchad at 3:14 PM on August 7, 2013 [1 favorite]