For some unlucky people, having a problem with facial recognition is more than just strange. It's an affliction known as prosopagnosia, or face blindness.
Mallon, however, was working for some of the most affluent families in the city, which were not exactly the sort of families that tended to suffer from afflictions like typhoid.
" Dey ain' a soun' set of bowels in de whole Confedrut ahmy, " observed Mammy darkly as she sweated over the fire, brewing a bitter concoction of blackberry roots which had been Ellen's sovereign remedy for such afflictions.
He suffered from dyspepsia, and he might often be seen sucking a tablet of pepsin; in the morning his appetite was poor; but this affliction alone would hardly have impaired his spirits.
Old Mr. Farquhar, from whom I purchased it, had at one time an excellent general practice; but his age, and an affliction of the nature of St. Vitus's dance from which he suffered, had very much thinned it.
Today, however, we remember him for his landmark study of the affliction then called the shaking palsy, but known ever since as Parkinson's disease. Parkinson had one other slight claim to fame.
He gave her a full account of Clym's affliction, and of the state in which he was living; then, referring to Thomasin, touched gently upon the apparent sadness of her days.