dysentery

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An inflammatory disorder of the lower intestinal tract, usually caused by a bacterial, parasitic, or protozoan infection and resulting in pain, fever, and severe diarrhea, often accompanied by the passage of blood and mucus.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A disease characterized by inflammation of the mucous membrane of the large intestine, mucous, bloody, and difficult evacuations, and more or less fever.
• noun Recent researches have shown that there are at least two diseases, and possibly more, having the same general symptoms and still grouped under the common designation of dysentery. One form, distinguished as bacillary dysentery, is characterized by the presence of a specific bacillus, Bacillus dysenteriæ or Shiga's bacillus (so named after the Japanese physician who discovered it). Another form, amebic dysentery, is associated with the presence in the intestine of a unicellular animal micro-organism, Amœba dysenteriæ. This form is less acute in its onset than bacillary dysentery, but may continue for months or even years, causing great emaciation and anemia, and not infrequently leading to abscess of the liver.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun (Med.) A disease attended with inflammation and ulceration of the colon and rectum, and characterized by griping pains, constant desire to evacuate the bowels, and the discharge of mucus and blood.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun pathology A disease characterised by inflammation of the intestines, especially the colon (large intestine), accompanied by pus (white blood cells) in the feces, fever, pain in the abdomen, low volume of diarrhea, and possible blood in the feces.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun an infection of the intestines marked by severe diarrhea