What does the Russian medical term "сухотки" mean?

The website a href="http://www.lvva-raduraksti.lv/en.html" rel="nofollow"http://www.lvva-raduraksti.lv/en.html/a has records of births, deaths, etc., in the late 1800's in what is now Latvia (it was part of Russia then). Many of them say the cause of death was "сухотки". This is obviously a Russian word. The literal translation is "tabes". However, there is now more than one possible medical condition now called "tabes" in English. Also, these records are over 100 years old and many medical conditions had different names than they do now. In the late 1800's, in the part of the Czar's empire that is now Latvia, what cause of death would have been described as "сухотки"?