The Origans of Medical Terminology
The Language origins of medical terminology
Christy Hajdaj
Ms. Fobear
Medical Terminology (ME 1110)
March 23, 2009
Medical terminology has a long and rich history that evolved in great measure from the Latin and Greek languages. “It is estimated that about three-fourths of our medical terminology is of Greek origin.”(Banay) “Latin accounts for the majority of root words in the English language.” (Fallon).
We find that the “oldest written sources of western medicine are The Hippocratic writings from the 5th and 4th centuries BC; which covers all aspects of medicine at that time and contain numerous medical terms.”(Wulff) This was the beginning of the Greek era of the language of medicine, which lasted even after the Roman conquest, since the Romans, who had no similar medical tradition, imported Greek medicine. Most of the doctors practicing in the Roman Empire were Greek. The main reason for this is that the Greeks were the founders of rational medicine in the golden age of Greek civilization in the 5th century BC. The Hippocratic School and, later on, Galen formulated the theories which dominated medicine up to the beginning of the 18th century. The Hippocratic were the first to describe diseases based on observation, and the names given by them to many conditions are still used today. A second reason for the large number of Greek medical terms is that the Greek language lends itself easily to the building of compounds. When new terms were needed, with the rapid expansion of medical science during the last century, Greek words or Latin words with Greek endings were used to express the new ideas, conditions, or instruments. The new words follow the older models so closely that it is impossible to distinguish the two by their forms. The fact is that about one-half of our medical terminology is less than a century old. A third reason for using the classical roots is that they form an international language, easily understood by anyone familiar with the
Christy Hajdaj
Ms. Fobear
Medical Terminology (ME 1110)
March 23, 2009
Medical terminology has a long and rich history that evolved in great measure from the Latin and Greek languages. “It is estimated that about three-fourths of our medical terminology is of Greek origin.”(Banay) “Latin accounts for the majority of root words in the English language.” (Fallon).
We find that the “oldest written sources of western medicine are The Hippocratic writings from the 5th and 4th centuries BC; which covers all aspects of medicine at that time and contain numerous medical terms.”(Wulff) This was the beginning of the Greek era of the language of medicine, which lasted even after the Roman conquest, since the Romans, who had no similar medical tradition, imported Greek medicine. Most of the doctors practicing in the Roman Empire were Greek. The main reason for this is that the Greeks were the founders of rational medicine in the golden age of Greek civilization in the 5th century BC. The Hippocratic School and, later on, Galen formulated the theories which dominated medicine up to the beginning of the 18th century. The Hippocratic were the first to describe diseases based on observation, and the names given by them to many conditions are still used today. A second reason for the large number of Greek medical terms is that the Greek language lends itself easily to the building of compounds. When new terms were needed, with the rapid expansion of medical science during the last century, Greek words or Latin words with Greek endings were used to express the new ideas, conditions, or instruments. The new words follow the older models so closely that it is impossible to distinguish the two by their forms. The fact is that about one-half of our medical terminology is less than a century old. A third reason for using the classical roots is that they form an international language, easily understood by anyone familiar with the
Cited: Gale Group Inc, Gale, Detroit. 2002. 18 March 2009 http://www.healthline.com/galecontent/medical-terminology Pochop, Irena. Disease: Medical Terminology in Middle English. 2005 13 March 2009 http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361pochop.htm Wulff, Henrik R. MD. The Language of Medicine J R Soc Med. 2004 April; 97(4): 187 -188 18 March 2009