Lecture 2Etymological Study of

Medical Terms

Etymology Definition The origin and historical development of a

linguistic form as shown by determining its basic elements, earliest known use, and changes in form and meaning, tracing its transmission from one language to another, identifying its cognates in other languages, and reconstructing its ancestral form where possible.

Medical Terminology - Applied

DefinitionThe words or terms that make up the

language of medicine are referred to as the terminology of the medical field.

Like every other language, medical terminology has changed over time, but the majority of terms are based on Latin or Greek words.

The Sources of Medical Terminology

Native terms

Borrowed terms

Coinage

Sources of Medical Terms

Native: those that derive from Old English

Old English (450AD-1100 AD) Time: the fifth and sixth centuries AD,

Event: invasion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes from northern Germany, Denmark and northern Holland into the British Isles and began populating those areas

Result: The invaders, known as the Anglo-Saxons, pushed the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants out of what is now England into Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, and Ireland, leaving behind a few Celtic words. The language they spoke, Anglo-Saxon, was mutually intelligible and at some point developed into what we know as Old English.

Words evolved from old English

Most medical words from old English denote :

Anatomic structures Organs Substances Basic concepts of human activities

Words evolved from old English Without Semantical Changes

ankle back bladder ear eye foot gum hair

knee lip liver lung neck throat tongue

Words evolved from old English Without Semantical Changes

Some words denoting basic physical functions: breath swallow thirst yawn sleep heal health

Some words denoting basic symptoms:

ache choke deaf fever lame mad swell wound

Anatomic words Words evolved from old English

With Semantical Changesblood In O.E., spelt as blod perhaps originally meant “to swell,

gush, spurt” or ‘"that which bursts out”.

Anatomic words Words evolved from old English

With Semantical Changeschest chest – In O.E., cest meaning “box, coffer”. a medicine chest ( 药箱 ) The meaning was extended to “thorax” in

1530 and replaced breast, on the metaphor that the ribs are a box for the organs.

Anatomic words Words evolved from old English

With Semantical Changesorgan It was organe in O.E., and orgene in O.Fr.

(Old French), both meaning “musical instrument”.

Sense was narrowed in late M.E. to modern musical instrument known by that name ( 风琴 ).

Anatomic words Words evolved from old

English With Semantical Changes

organ Great Organ Works The meaning “functioning body part”

appeared in English in 1392.

Words evolved from old English

Other Examples:

whooping-cough

pertussis

pink eye

epidemic conjunctivitis

athlete’s foot

tinea pedis

Submedical Words Word General Meaning Medical meaning Examples

arrest base carrier complaint complication control digest failure shock

Sources of Medical Terms

Borrowed words, or loan-words: taken from other languages

largely based upon Greek, Latin and French vocabulary

German, Italian, Spanish and others have contributed some words to medical terminology.

Words originated from Greek

Great influence of long standing and well established ancient Greek civilization on western culture

·Asklepios (Greek spelling) /Aesculapius (Latin spelling)

埃斯科拉庇俄斯： the god of medicine and healing

He had a stick with the snake curled around it .

Words originated from Greek (WHO) World Health Organization

Words originated from Greek

中国医师协会标志

Words originated from Greek

·Hippocrates: the father of western medicine

a Greek physician born in 460 BCon the island of Cos, Greece. He became known as the founder of medicine and was regarded as the greatest physician of his time. He based his medical practice on observations and on the study of the human body.

Words originated from Greek

acne It was borrowed from Gk. akme in

1570, meaning “(highest) point”. It contains the base “ak-”, denoting “sharp”.

“青春痘” “痤疮” “粉刺”

Words originated from Greek

diagnosis It was Greek diagnosis (a discerning,

distinguishing) used as a medical term in English in 1681. The word was evolved from diagignoskein composed of dia- (apart) and gignoskein (to learn, to discern).

Words originated from Greek Other Examples:

(1) aden, anorexia, colon, coma, derma, dyspeptic, glaucoma, glottis, larynx, metastasis, necrosis, nephron, paralysis, phalanx, pharynx, pneumonia, psychology, rachis, soma, stenosis, stoma, thorax,

— simple, fixed and precise

Achilles

Irisiris

Words originated from Latin The earliest influence of Latin language on

English may date back to Roman Empire. With the expansion, the Romans brought

their language to other parts of the entire Empire.

Greater influence was exerted after Norman Conquest. As Norman invaders spoke a language that derives from Ancient Latin, borrowing from Latin was inevitable.

Words originated from Latin

aorta Borrowed into English in 1578 from Middle

Latin aorta, the term was applied by Aristotle to the great artery of the heart. It literally meant “what is hung up.”

Words originated from Latin

bacteria The plural form of Modern Latin of

bacterium, it comes into English in 1847. The original Latin word is from Greek bakterion (small staff), the diminutive （ 指小词） of baktron (stick, rod). It is so called because the first ones observed were rod-shaped.

Words originated from Latin

cell It is made from Latin cella (small room, hut),

related to Latin celare (to hide, conceal). The earliest sense was for monastic rooms, then prison rooms. It began to be used in biology in the 17th century but not in modern sense until 1845.

Words originated from Latin

Other Examples: acute, abscess, abdomen, apnea,

autopsy, bacterium, cancer, clinic, cerebrum, cornea, cortex, dystrophy, hydrophobia, inflame, medicine, muscle, nausea, obstetrics, panacea, pelvis, placebo, plexus, prognosis, rabies, tumor, vertebra

Words originated from LatinThe changes of the endings: (1) inflammation, inspection (-tio→ -tion)

(2) catarrh, fluid (-us)

(3) ligament, pigment, medicament

(-mentum → -ment)

(4) immunity, heredity, obesity (-itas → -ity)

(5) medicine (medicina), intestine

(intestinum)

Julius Caesar

Julius Caesar → Caesarean Section

Some interesting Examples:

Mercury →mercury Mercury, also known as

quicksilver or hydrargyrum, is a chemical element with the symbol Hg (Latinized Greek: hydrargyrum, from "hydr-" meaning watery or runny and "argyros" meaning silver) and atomic number 80.

Mercury-god of commerce

Some interesting Examples:

Venus → venereal

Hygeia → hygiene

Panacea → panacea

Some interesting Examples:

Aesculapius and Hygeia

Words originated from French

After the Norman Conquest, the conquerors ruled the country for a long period of time and left a deep influence on the English language.

As French language itself is a modified form of Latin, many of these borrowed words ultimately come from Greek, since many words form this language had passed into Latin.

Words originated from French

hospital

Borrowed in 1242 from Old French hospital (hostel), it originally referred to “shelter for the needy”. Its sense of “institution for sick people” was first recorded 1549. Hospitalize was recorded from 1901.

Words originated from French

faint (adj.)

Old French faint (soft, weak, sluggish), which was derived from past participle of faindre (avoid one's duty by pretending), entered English in about 1300. Sense of “weak, feeble” began to be used in about1320.

Words originated from French

Disease

It was evolved in about 1330 from Old French desaise, made of des– (without, away) and aise (ease). Sense of “sickness, illness” was first recorded in 1393.

Words originated from French

Other examples:

ambulance, anatomy, antibiotics, artery, benign, bruit, chronic, doctor, embolism, jaundice, lavage, lymph, malaise, massage, mortuary, palpitation, pathology, prostate, rehabilitation, surgeon,

Words originated from German Starting from 19th century, German made

great progress in science and technology. Such advances necessitate new vocabulary to

denote new findings, discoveries, concepts and substances.

Some medical terms were first coined in German and then introduced into English.

Words originated from German

aspirin

It was coined in 1899 in German as a trademark name either from Greek a– (without) and Latin spiraea (ulmaria), the plant in whose flowers or leaves the processed acid in the medicine is found naturally.

Hence aspirin means “acetylo–salicylic acid which is gained not from the Spiraea ulmaria( 绣线菊类的植物 )(but in a chemical way)”.

Words originated from German

Biology

The word was suggested from Greek bios (life) and logia (study of) in 1802 by German naturalist G. Reinhold Treviranus （特雷维拉努斯） and introduced as a scientific term that year in French by Lamarck( 拉马克） . It was borrowed in English in 1819.

Words originated from German

Other examples:

barbiturate, chemotherapy, chromosome, gene, genome, leukemia, neuron, psychoanalysis, schizophrenia, testosterone

Words originated from Italian, Spanish and Chinese

From Italian :

influenza, malaria, quarantine From Spanish:

mosquito, quinine From Chinese:

yin, yang, jing, qi, tui na (from Pinyin)

acupoint, acupressure,moxibustion (coinage)

Words originated from Direct Coinage

Development in medical science necessitates more words to describe new findings, explains innovative processes and denotes new concepts .English has been enriched with a large vocabulary of coinage, embodying creativity and talents of all human thinking.

Words from Direct Coinage

acupuncture

It was coined in 1684 from Latin acus (needle) and English puncture, first used as noun meaning “pricking with a needle”. The verb was first recorded 1972.

Words from Direct Coinage

antacid

It was coined in 1732 from anti- (against) and acid.

Words from Direct Coinage

paramedic: It means “medical technician”, back-formation from paramedical (related to medicine in an auxiliary capacity) (1921), from para- + medical. The meaning “medical corpsman who parachutes” is 1951 from para(chute) + medic.

Causes of Coinage

1. Intersection and differentiation of medical science:

cytopathology

nanomedicine

microbial engineering

immunotoxicology

Causes of Coinage2. New findings in the medical field:

(1) penicillin, chemotherapy, streptomycin, electrocardiogram(ECG), reproductive cloning, transsexual operation, artificial heart

pasteurization

(2) AIDS, SARS, avian flu (bird flu), Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, karoshi (death from overwork), subhealth, ICU syndrome, affluenza (civil disease),

Causes of Coinage

(3) Escherichia coli, rickettsia, Shigella, Salmonella

(4)fallopian tube, Eustachian tube, Bowman’s

gland

(5)Mediterranean anemia, tularemia (rabbit

fever), Keshan disease

Causes of Coinage

3. Raised awareness of health care:

Medicare, Medicaid, aerobic exercise, organic food, skimmed milk, vegetarian, internet addiction, over-the-counter (OTC) drug, balanced diet, health-care food

4. Renewal of medical ethical views:

bioethics, hospice care, QOL (quality of life), euthanasia (mercy killing) , dignified death, brain death, vegetative state, informed consent