carbuncles
One of my grandfather's stories was the one about when he was a very young man (this would be ca. 1900) in Harrisburg, PA, he developed a large messy carbuncle on the back of his neck. One of the neighbors saw it and reported it to someone and next thing he know, my grandfather, to his extreme fury, was locked up in the pesthouse, or lazaretto, for several days before he could get a doctor to certify that he didn't have a communicable disease. Amazing to find that such an institution existed in the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century.