incurable bone-ache

incurable bone-ache
   obsolete
   syphilis
   Not rheumatism or arthritis. Until Fleming's discovery of penicillin, the condition might be arrested but not cured, and mental institutions had many patients suffering from neurosyphilis, or general paralysis of the insane:
    Now the rotten diseases of the south... incurable bone-ache. (Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida)

How not to say what you mean: A dictionary of euphemisms. . 2014.

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