The nomenclature of diseases : drawn up by a joint committee appointed by the Royal College of Physicians of London.

  • Royal College of Physicians of London.
Date:
1869
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nomenclature of diseases : drawn up by a joint committee appointed by the Royal College of Physicians of London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    the things about which medical observation is exercised, and of forming a steady basis upon which medical experi- ence may be safely built. Another main use of the statistical registration of diseases on a wide scale, is that it must tend to throw light upon the causes of disease, many of which causes, when duly recognised, may be capable of prevention, removal, or diminution. When a general and uniform Nomenclature of Disease has once been carefully framed, when we are sure that medical observation is occupying itself everywhere with the selfsame diseases, the value of statistical tables becomes very high, as representing the course of events in disease under various circumstances of time, place, season, climate, manners and customs, age, sex, race, and treatment. This general, or common, or standard nomenclature need not be imposed upon every nation and people as its proper nomenclature. It could not. It would be unin- telligible by the people at large, and embarrassing to those by whom the necessary returns must be made. But the nomenclature proper or peculiar to each country, and which may be called its national nomenclature, should be readily convertible into the standard nomenclature. The one, or the other, of these standard and national nomenclatures may first be framed by an English (or by any other) Committee, or the two may be framed simul- taneously. The Committee appointed by the Boyal College of Phy- sicians of London have prepared a Nomenclature suitable to England, and to all countries where the English language is in common use. For each name they have supplied the corresponding Latin term, which is the language of ancient