The Amazing Language of Medicine (eBook)

Robert B. Taylor, MD, Emeritus Professor, Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine in Portland, Oregon, and Professor, Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Taylor is the author and editor of more than 35 medical books. Robert B. Taylor, MDProfessor EmeritusDepartment of Family MedicineOregon Health & Science UniversitySchool of MedicinePortland, Oregon, USAAnd Professor Department of Family and Community MedicineEastern Virginia Medical School Norfolk, Virginia, USA

Dedication 5
Preface 6
Contents 8
List of Figures 9
Chapter 1: About Medical Words and Their Origins 21
Some Words About the Medical Words We Use Today 23
My Interest in Words 24
What’s Ahead? 25
References 27
Chapter 2: Medical Words with Mythological Origins 28
In the Grove of Academia 28
The Odd Origin of Apollo Disease 30
Mercury and its Movements 30
Atlas and the Celestial Globe 33
Aphrodite Arising from the Sea 33
Children of Aphrodite: Eros, Hymen, and Priapus 34
Children of Aesculapius 35
Atropine and the Three Fates 37
The Sphinx and Muscles that Squeeze Tightly 37
Oedipus and His Mother 39
Narcissus, Echo, and an Ill-Fated Attraction 39
Undine and the Penalty for a Broken Promise 41
The French Disease and the Shepherd 41
Ulysses in the Clinic Today 42
Morpheus, the God of Dreams 43
The Maze and the Inner Ear 44
The River of Forgetfulness 45
References 45
Chapter 3: Descriptive Medical Terms: Activities, Actions, and Appearances 46
Physician: From Greek to Latin to French to English—To Provider 47
Plague: Rats, Fleas, Quarantine, and the Black Death 48
Ascorbic Acid and the Battle Against Scurvy 49
Sartorius: the Tailor’s Muscle 50
The Ornithological Origins of the Disease Named Pica 51
Testis, Testimony, and the Swearing on Highly Valued Items 52
Nausea on the High Seas 53
Perils of Eating Like an Ox 53
Epilepsy, the Not-So-Divine Disease 54
Islets, Diabetes, and Insulin 55
The Emperor and the Horse 55
Sydenham, Huntington, and the Chorines 56
The Artery of Stupefaction 58
Pudendum, Shame, and Shamelessness 58
The White Plague, Euphemisms, and Poets 59
The Little Mouse of Strength 60
The Paintbrush that Changed History 61
Damn the Sphenoid 62
Horses and Sea Monsters 62
Diphtheria and the Skin of the Goat 63
Anal Varicosities and the Ring of Fire 63
About the Glove of the Fox 64
The Tale of the Tailbone 65
Shutting the Window of Vision 65
A Vision of a Fort 66
Ears, Goats, and Tragic Flaws 67
The Body’s Holy Bone 67
Beware of the Mad Dog 68
Sewing and Seams 69
References 70
Chapter 4: Medical Words from Various Languages 71
Rumors, Noises, and Hums 71
Druggists and Grocers 72
Making a Crackling Sound 73
Hospital 74
What is Done When There is not Enough Care for All 75
Sausages, Books, and Botox 75
The Pox, Great and Small 76
Tobacco as Cure and Curse 77
The Flowering Plant That Gave Us Mary Jane 79
From Brazil to Your Medicine Cabinet, and Then Not 79
More Potent than Marijuana 80
Eye Shadow and Demons 81
The Story of the Magic Hairball 81
The Red Boys of the Gold Coast 83
Black Fever and the Sand Fly 83
The Tale of the Dangerous Bug 84
Bringing Home the Tattoo 85
Running Amok or Amuck 85
Agar, Dessert, and Jelly 86
The Perils of Polished Rice 87
The Laughing Death Syndrome 88
Cocaine: From the Jungle of Peru to the Halls of Academe in Baltimore 89
Quinine 90
Of Courage and Chopped Liver 90
Little Spots and High Fevers 91
Rickets 93
References 94
Chapter 5: Medical Words Linked to Places 95
Cars and Forests and Summer Olympics 96
Another Virus from Uganda 97
Other Viral Causes of Encephalitis 97
Homes of the Hemorrhagic Fevers 98
Of Coughs and Camels 98
The Middle Eastern Origin of the Word Vitamin 100
The Skull from the Mountains 101
The Island of Female Homosexuality 102
Malta Fever in the Crimean War 102
From a Small Town in Thessaly, Three Words 103
The Little Dragon from Medina 103
Colchicine 104
Plaster of Paris 105
From Another Section of Paris 106
From a Small Danish Island 106
Little Red Spots and Liberty Measles 107
Trench Fever, Foot, and Mouth 107
A Protozoan Parasite in a Popular Resort 108
The Dangers of the Deer Tick 109
Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Not Always in the Mountains 110
On an Island in Chesapeake Bay 111
Names from Cities, Countries, and Continents 112
References 113
Chapter 6: Medical Metaphor, Simile, and Onomatopoeia 114
Looks Like a Berry to Me 116
Rice Water Stools 116
Coffee, with Milk, Please 116
On the Front Lines 118
The Body as a Machine 118
Medicine as Sport 119
Water Hammers, Phantom Limbs, and Thunderclap Headaches 120
Elephants, Serpents, and Fish 122
Things That Look Like Other Things 124
The Shape of Things Medical 127
Snap, Crackle, and Pop 129
Cough 129
Maybe Not Exactly Like a Crane 130
Sneezing and Sternutation 130
Spit and Sputum 131
Hiccup or Hiccough? 132
Murmur, Innocent and Otherwise 132
Rumble in the Jungle 133
Piss and Pee and the Pequod That Wasn’t 133
Quacks and Quacksalvers 134
References 135
Chapter 7: Eponymous and Honorary Medical Terms 137
Fingers, Facies, and Wreaths 139
The Circle and the Nerve of Willis 140
Colles Fracture and His Folly 141
Parkinson Disease 142
Story of a Flawed Giant 143
About Spoiled Wine and a Boston Street 143
The Unwelcome Naming 144
Robert Koch and His Postulates 145
An Eponym Likely to Last 147
Tics and Sometimes Coprolalia 148
Alzheimer Disease and Who Named It 149
The Tyranny of Alphabetization 150
Sorry About that Nobel Prize 150
The Peregrinating Problem Patient 151
Eternal Life as a Cell Line 152
With Approval of the Editor and the Down Family 152
About First Authors and Eponyms 153
Eponymous Alice and Othello 153
Being Forever Young 154
I Won’t Grow Up 154
Popeye, Orphan Annie, and Satchmo 156
A Biblical Eponym 157
Autoeponyms, Baseball, and the Iron Horse 158
The Truth About Pott’s Fracture 158
The Hunterian Chancre of Syphilis 159
More Diseases Named for Patients 159
Where Some Drug Names Originated 160
Smoldering Eponymous Controversies 161
Introduction to Tashima’s Syndrome 162
References 163
Chapter 8: Medical Authorisms and Their Creators 164
Tones and Tonics in Music and Health 165
That Which Stands Before 166
The Rectum: First or Last 166
Insane, Insanity, and Bedlam 167
In Praise of Laudanum 168
The Sheath and the Sword 169
Jail, Camp, and Ship Fever 169
Angina Pectoris and Cordis 169
Diarrhea, Dementia, and Dermatitis 170
From Stone to Soft Drink 171
Like Curing and Preventing Like 172
The Path to Painless Surgery 173
Fear of the Marketplace 174
Appendicitis and its Named Signs 174
A State of Premature Madness 175
The Disease Resembling Flesh 175
Dr. Röntgen’s Mysterious Ray 177
Radium, Polonium, and Curies 178
Sorry About the Mediterranean Jellyfish 179
The Magic Bullet and Chemotherapy 179
Being Dull and Worse 180
No Thirteenth Floor in My Hotel 180
Discovering is Different than Naming 181
About Your Breath 182
Medicine’s Longest Word 182
Naming the Early Wonder Drugs 183
Not Everyone Favors a New Medical Word 183
Gomer 183
Neither Diagnosed nor Cured 184
Diabetic and Overweight 184
Into the Record, Over and Over 185
References 186
Chapter 9: Medical Words with Intriguing Origins 187
From Mind to Diaphragm 187
On the Influence of the Stars 188
From Under the Costal Cartilages 189
Fornicate 190
Of Our Own Making 190
I Shall Be Pleasing 190
Compassion for One with a Soul 192
Like a Bird Flapping its Wings 193
Archery and Toxins 193
The Packsaddle Child 193
The Place of the Skull 194
The Measure of the Elbow 194
The Humorous Humerus 195
The No-Name Artery 195
Philtrum 196
A Disease Your Friends Diagnose 196
Hippocrates and the Fox 197
A Synonym for Syphilis 197
A Curious Numerical Name for an Illness 198
Can You Die of a Broken Heart? 198
About Removing Feathers and More 199
Stirring the Pot 200
Q is for Query, or Queensland 200
Paregoric Politics 200
Like a Hero 201
Rifamycins 202
Isoniazid 203
From a Messy Diaper in Munich 203
Passing Through the Filter 204
Linguistic Oddities 205
To Avoid Offending Sensibilities 205
Acronyms 207
Worth Saying Twice 208
References 208
Chapter 10: Medical Words with Confusing and Controversial Origins 210
No Air in the Artery 211
A Legacy of Forbidden Fruit 212
No Nasal Mucus at All 212
Warty Growth, Thyme, and Soul 212
Joe, the Fat Boy 213
The Smug Sequences of Male-Dominated Thinking 215
Which Fire and Which Saint Anthony? 216
From a Linguistic Porcine Ancestor 217
Oranges, Lemons, and Limes 218
Not Exactly the Seed of Life 219
From the Bad Air 219
A Disease with Many Names 219
Not Really Caused by Hay 220
The Original Spring Fever 221
Hypertension: Essential or Essential? 221
The Pharmaceutical Rx 222
In Love at the Time 223
Who Owns Aspirin? 223
If It Has Wings, It’s Not Medicine 224
An Angel Dies 225
Orthopedics and Pediatrics 226
Menstruum, Menses, and Solvents 226
To Sheath and Protect 227
Happy Birthday, Young Gaius Julius 228
The Mad Atter 228
Western, Southern, and Other Blots 230
The Last Entry in the Book 231
References 231
Acknowledgements 233
Bibliography 234
Index 236