Old medical term "waste" ?

[Brock]

|help|
Does anyone know what the old medical term "waste" means?
We have obtained a death certificate of an ancestor and this is what is recorded as the cause of death but we do not know what it means.

Thank you.
Brock.

[Browneyes]

Can I ask what year?

[Mutley]

There is a wasting disease,
I think the medical term may be Cachexia.

You can google both terms for explanations

[birdlip]

Consumption, or TB was sometimes referred to as "wasting disease"

[susan-y]

I have heard of someone wasting away and often it was in reference to someone with a terminal illness, that slowly lost weight, didn't eat, and eventually went to sleep and didn't wake up. I don't think diagnosis was as acurate as it is today and they may have had cancer, TB, MS etc. but no one had put an actual name to it. In fact whenever I asked my Mom what her Dad had died from she would say " Oh, he just sort of wasted away". Turns out he had emphysema.

Sue

[kiwipom]

From "Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms"
http://www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishW.htm

"Wasting Disease

Pulmonary Tuberculosis. Involving the lungs with progressive wasting of the body. [Webster1913]"

[Brock]

The year was 1864.

[Brock]

You are all very kind in helping me, I appreciate it very much.
Thank you.

Brock.