rheumatism [E17th] People have been rheumatic [LME] in the sense of suffering from too much rheum, or watery discharge, since the Middle Ages but doctors have only been diagnosing rheumatism in their patients since the 17th century. The disease was originally supposed to be caused by watery fluids in the body, and the word comes from Greek rheumatizein ‘to snuffle’, from rheuma ‘stream’.