zymotic

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or causing fermentation.
2. (historical, not-comparable)Infectious, contagious, of diseases originally regarded as being caused by a process similar to fermentation.

   “[…] these […] accounts by no means bear out the zymotic doctrine of the Board of Health as to the cause of cholera; for where the zymotic influences from the sewers were the worst, […] the cholera was the least destructive.”

   “The incidence of zymotic diseases upon any particular organ or set of organs, is, of course, well recognised; one recalls the nephritis of scarlatina, the endocarditis of rheumatism, gastritis of rabies, and—perhaps the most striking instance of the selective affinity of disease for specific local manifestation—the lesions of foot-and-mouth disease.”

   “Farr concluded that overcrowding was the main determinant of high mortality from what (following Liebig) he style ‘zymotic diseases’.”