Daily AncestorPhthisis
Phthisis is a Greek-derived medical word for consumption, meaning pulmonary tuberculosis or, more loosely, any wasting disease.
Phthisis comes from a Greek word for wasting. Educated doctors wrote it where a family or clerk would have written consumption, and both usually meant tuberculosis of the lungs.
You may also see phthisic or phthisical, and phthisis pulmonalis for the lung form. Like consumption, the term could be stretched to other wasting illnesses before germ testing existed.
As seen in a recordCause of death line on an early 1900s death certificate
Cause of death: Phthisis pulmonalis. Duration: 2 yrs.
Sources
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Daily Ancestor. "Phthisis." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/causes-of-death/phthisis. Last checked 2026-10-01.