Falling ill and getting better

The list for the weeks between falling ill and being signed off. Near the end is l’affection de longue durée, and the noun in it is not warmth. Une affection is an *ailment*, a medical condition — une affection cutanée is a skin complaint, and l’affection de longue durée is the official category of chronic illness that changes what the health service pays. English « affection » is fondness and has no medical use at all; the English here is « condition », and « long-term condition ». French does keep the warm sense too — avec affection at the end of a letter, affectueusement — so one noun holds both, and only the register separates them. The medical sense is the older one: Latin afficere meant to act upon, and a body acted upon is affected.