jail fever

noun

1. a former name for typhus, once a common disease in jails

Example Sentences

Among the possibilities mentioned were jail fever, camp fever, eruptive military fever, and autumnal fever.

From Literature

VARIETIES.—Many of the varieties of typhus fever recognized by authors—as, for example, jail fever, ship fever, camp fever, and hospital fever—really differ in nothing but name and the circumstances under which the disease has arisen.

From Project Gutenberg

Milk sickness of the malignant type luxuriates in the locations referred to, for the same reasons that yellow fever is peculiar to warm climates, and consumption to cold ones; and that different localities have distinct diseases; for example, ship fever, jail fever, &c.

From Project Gutenberg

Poverty and dirt soon robbed their cheeks of the roses which the country air made bloom with a peculiar freshness; so that they soon caught a jail fever,—and died.  p. 12The poor father, who was now bereft of all his children, hung over their bed in speechless anguish; not a groan or a tear escaped from him, whilst he stood, two or three hours, in the same attitude, looking at the dead bodies of his little darlings. 

From Project Gutenberg

He'd been kept a prisoner till exchanged, and had had a hard time getting home, with little money and a bad wound in the leg, besides being feeble with jail fever.

From Project Gutenberg