water sickness

From Middle English watersiknesse, wæterseocnesse, from Old English wætersēocnes (“dropsy”), equivalent to water +‎ sickness.

water sickness (uncountable)

1. (rare, archaic) Dropsy.
   • 1809, Arthur Edmondston, A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands:

     Water sickness, or general dropsy, also frequently takes place among sheep.

   • 1908, British Medical Journal, page 999:

     For water sickness (dropsy), or stones in the bladder, the cure was elder (sambucus, B.P.), for which also it is claimed “all things which are generated on a man's body to loathe, it thoroughly will heal.”