jail-fever, gaol-fever
(ˈdʒeɪlˈfiːvə(r))
[f. jail, gaol n. + fever n.]
A virulent type of typhus-fever, formerly endemic in crowded jails, and frequent in ships and other confined places.
| [1750 Pringle (title) Observations on the Nature and Cure of Hospital and Jail Fevers.] 1753 J. Pringle in Phil. Trans. XLVIII. 42 Cases of the true goal-fever arising from the gaol itself. 1780 Gentl. Mag. Dec. 578/1 No signs of a jail-fever were ever discovered in the Russian prisons. 1800 Med. Jrnl. IV. 356 The gaol fever is seldom to be met with except on board of ships or in crowded towns. 1887 Syd. Soc. Lex., Gaol fever, a term for a very infectious and fatal fever which at various times..has broken out in crowded, dirty prisons... There is no doubt that this was Typhus fever generated in the prison out of the filth, and overcrowding, and bad diet and close foul air. 1898 Besant Orange Girl II. xxii, Her cheek grew pale and thin: her eyes became unnaturally bright: I feared gaol-fever. |