Hussar
Legend
From 2nd edition PHB.
Hit points - a number representing 1. how
much damage a character can suffer before
being killed, determined by Hit Dice (9.u.).
The hit points lost to injury can usually be
regained by rest or healing. 2. how much
damage a specific attack does, determined
by weapon or monster statistics, and subtracted
from a player's total.
Damage - the effect of a successful attack or
other harmful situation, measured in hit
points.
From 1st edition PHB.
Conatitution: Constitution is a term which encompasses the character’s
physique, fitness, health, and resistance. Since constitution affects the
character‘s hit dice and chances of surviving such great system shocks as
being changed by magic spell or resurrected from the dead, it is of
considerable importance to all classes. Constitution scores of above a
certain number are necessary for becoming certain sub-classes of
characters. Effects of constitution are given on the table below.
It is of utmost importance to understand that a character’s initial
constitution score is also the maximum number of times the character can
be raised from the dead/resurrected, and that each such revivification
reduces the character’s constitution score by 1. Although a character’s
constitution can be restored to its former score, or even raised above this
number, by magical means, this in no way alters the initio1 score
limitation, nor does such magical change in constitution restore to the
character additional chances for revivification. Thus, if a character has an
initial constitution of 15, he or she can never be brought back to life by a
raise dead or resurrection spell more often than 15 times. Note that a rod
of resurrection is considered the same as a spell of the same sort. The 16th
death is final and irrevocable without use of some other magical means
such as a wish.
Now it's cute that some of you continue to bang on about this but 4th edition did not mimic how HP was looked at and the system was chock full of inconsistencies with regards to the narrative and the math. If you look at the old mechanics only then it looks like HP was mostly a physical thing. Hell, even today your Constitution, which is purely physical, is tied to HP and how much extra you get. The same goes with the definition of damage and HP.
The rules have been one big contradiction since the beginning and 4th edition managed to bring it even more in the spotlight and made it even harder to gloss over.
Wait, what? How did you get that from what you just quoted? The Con quote talks mostly about losing Con due to coming back from the dead and has virtually nothing to do with hit points. The 2e quote says that HP are simply a numerical value for how much damage you can take. It doesn't actually define what damage means. Your quotes don't actually mean what you think they mean.
What is actually true is that HP are largely unchanged in every edition. What changed in 4e was the fact that the game actually took the definition of HP and expanded on it to include non-physical attacks. It is no more inconsistent than any other application of HP.