The Collaborative International Dictionary
Relapsing \Re*laps"ing\, a. Marked by a relapse; falling back; tending to return to a former worse state.
Relapsing fever (Med.), an acute, epidemic, contagious fever, which prevails also endemically in Ireland, Russia, and some other regions. It is marked by one or two remissions of the fever, by articular and muscular pains, and by the presence, during the paroxism of spiral bacterium ( Spiroch[ae]te) in the blood. It is not usually fatal. Called also famine fever, and recurring fever.
Typhus \Ty"phus\, n. [NL., fr. Gr. ? smoke, cloud, stupor arising from fever; akin to ? to smoke, Skr. dh?pa smoke.] (Med.) A contagious continued fever lasting from two to three weeks, attended with great prostration and cerebral disorder, and marked by a copious eruption of red spots upon the body. Also called jail fever, famine fever, putrid fever, spottled fever, etc. See Jail fever, under Jail.
Wiktionary
n. (context dated English) typhus fever
Usage examples of "famine fever".
The principal form of the scourge was known as the contagious famine fever (typhus), and it spread, not merely from end to end of the country in which it had originated, but, breaking through all boundaries, it crossed the broad ocean, and made itself painfully manifest in localities where it was previously unknown.