Whooping cough is an infectious bacterial disease that causes uncontrollable coughing...comes from the noise you make when you take a breath after you cough. You may have choking spells or may cough so hard that you vomit...
It's characterized by severe coughing spells that end in a "whooping" sound when the person breathes in. Before a vaccine was available, pertussis killed 5,000 to 10,000 people in the United States each year. Now, the pertussis vaccine has reduced...