I'm not sure I'm in the right place for this, & I recently went over 10 in postings, but I couldn't figure out where else I could ask this question.
In "Matri-phony", ancient Rome is called Erysipelas. In "Don't Throw That Knife", when Moe is biting Shemp's ear, Shemp exclaims, "Cut it out! You'll give me erysipelas" (although he pronounces it more as "ear"-ysipelas" - probably making a pun). I hadn't given the word much thought until recently, when it popped up in a Dashiell Hammett book I was reading. He's the creator of detective Sam Spade, & was publishing in the late 1920s/early 1930s. In none of these was the word used in any kind of context, so that you could at least guess what it was supposed to mean. I checked the internet, but to no avail.
I'm guessing it was some type of slang from the 1920s through the 1940s. And like most slang, it fell out of favor or was replaced by a new term. Does anyone here in stoogeland know what in the H E double hockey sticks the word "erysipelas" is supposed to mean?
["I'm trying to think, but nothing happens"]