Barbarism in medical language.

  • Rose, Achilles, 1839-1916.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Barbarism in medical language. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    \o. Reprinted from the Nezv York ilradical Journal for March 2, igoj: I BARBARISM IN MEBiGAL LANGUAGE. 126 East Twenty-ninth Street, New York, February 11, 1907. To the Editors: In La Semaine medicate, 1906, No. 52, appeared an article by M. Sakorrhaphos, prolessor of medicine in the University of Athens, entitled Com- ment on doit former les ncologismes medicaux du Grec, in which not only all I have been saying on this sub- ject these thirteen years is stated, but also many strik- ing examples mentioned of incorrect medical terms which I myself had exposed in numerous writings. Littre, more than half a century ago, wrote: “ Medi- cal language, which in its first composition is almost entirely Greek, has not ceased to fall back on this source when the inevitable necessity presents itself of coining new terms, but in many instances nomenclators of modern times have gone astray by creating unneces- sary words and by violating the laws of analogy and orthography.” Corrections of this evil are useful under all circum- stances for teaching as well as for thinking. Sakor- rhaphos has apparently not read my own remarks in which I refer to the beautiful words of Lavoisier on the necessity of correct scientific language:— “ Onomatology furnishes the real instruments for the operation of the mind; it is important that these instru- ments should be of the best, and it is indeed working in the interest of science, for the progress of science, when we exert ourselves to improve our onomatology. . . . In science we have to distinguish three things: The series of facts which constitute' the science, the ideas which recall the facts, and the words to express the ideas. The word has to develop the idea, the idea has to embrace the fact; these are three impressions with the same seal. Since the words preserve the ideas and transmit them, perfection in science is impossible without perfection in language However true Copyright, 1907, by A. R. Elliott Publishing Co.