Zymotic Diseases
a name applied to epidemic and endemic contagious diseases, because they are supposed to be produced by some morbific principle which acts on the human system like a ferment. This morbific principle or poison gets into the blood in minute particles or germs, and there increases or multiplies, the disease lasting till the poison has become forked out, or has been destroyed. The chief of these diseases are measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, typhiod, diphtheria, whooping cough, croup and erysipelas.