ragpicker's disease

Questions about ragpicker's disease

What does ragpicker's disease mean?

ragpicker's disease means "a form of anthrax infection acquired by inhalation of dust containing Bacillus anthracis; initial symptoms (chill and cough and dyspnea and rapid pulse) are followed by extreme cardiovascular collapse".

What is another word for ragpicker's disease?

Close synonyms include pulmonary anthrax, inhalation anthrax, anthrax pneumonia, ragsorter's disease, woolsorter's pneumonia. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ragpicker's disease a common word?

ragpicker's disease is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.