Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SCUR'VY, n. [from scurf; scurvy for scurfy; Low L. scorbutus.]

A disease characterized by livid spots of various sizes, sometimes minute and sometimes large, and occasioned by extravasation of blood under the cuticle, paleness, languor, lassitude, and depression of spirits, general exhaustion, pains in the limbs, occasionally with fetid breath, spungy and bleeding gums, and bleeding from almost all the mucous membranes. It is occasioned by confinement, innutritious food and hard labor in conjunction; but more especially by confinement for a long period of time, to a limited range of food, which is incapable of supplying the elements necessary to repair the waste of the system. This disease has been called purpura by some nosologists, but by Good, it is more appropriately styled porphyra.