Aetiology, pathology and therapy of medical slang / by Achilles Rose.

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

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Aetiology, pathology and therapy of medical slang / by Achilles Rose. 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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    Again, there are writere in whom several unfortunate qualities are united, they do not even consult the Greek lexicon, but translate in a clumsy way from Eng- lish for instance into Greek and produce such monstrosities as oophorectomy, which would mean, literally translated, castration of an ovipare or of all the ovipares, and which besides is ungram- matical since the preposition “ec” can- not be placed in the middle of a word (the correct Greek term for what is meant here is oothecotomy) ; or the term nephrokapsectomy, which is supposed to mean excision of the renal capsule. Renal capsule in Greek is epinephridion and the correct Greek term is epinephri- diotomy. In languag'e all is explained by logic or by history which is logic, and there fore we have to look up history in order to find an explanation of this state of corruption in medical language. Our Graeco-Latin onomatology is evi- dence that our science originated in Graeco-Roman anticpiity, and these class- ical languages in our onomato thesia have given our science an international character and established a union of the different peoples for the good of science. That part of ancient Greek literature which has been transmitted to us through the classical writers is an artistic pro- duct and was not the language really spoken. Greek is the oldest of all the living languages of civilized nations. Prom the classical period of the Attic orators down to the present day it forms an unbroken continuation of classical Attic. Greek is not a dead language, and Greek spoken and written throughout Greece today is iu reality no New-Greek. There has never existed a language which permitted greater distinction of expression or style than the Attic. The official language taught throughout Greece even in the humblest village school is pure Attic. Every Greek at present is at liberty to use the colloqirial language or even his own dialect in everyday intercourse; but when he pro- ceeds to commit his thoughts to paper, he iiS compelled to follow the Attic grammar. Let us see how the Greeks go to work when new formations are required: countless demands are constantly made on their language; they do not adopt, with the imported foreign ideas the con- notative words also of foreign peoples. They refuse to have a hybrid language. Their history, their national pride, lead them to exclude foreign words and to take such necessary elements from the ancient Greek so as to enable them to create new symbols for new ideas. Notwithstanding my demonstration of this fact over and over again in num- erous writings I meet in endless varia- tions from colleagues in America as well as in Germany the following complaint: “I disapprove entirely of the plan to make modern Greek the basis of a re- formed medical nomenclature! ’ ’ and my answer always has been: “ I have never proposed and should never propose to make ‘modem Greek’ the basis of a re- formed medical nomenclature, for the simple reason that there exists nothing modern in the scientific onomatology of our Greek brethern. They have retained all the classical terms, and when new formations for new conceptions had to be created, they have always been most scrupulous to form them from classical Greek. Nothing is more detestable to Greek men of science than for instance to employ words in scientific language which originated in the Graeco-Roman or the Byzantine period and deviate from the spirit of classical Attic.” And I always add that I should be thankful to such adversary for pointing out a single exception to this rule. In Greece, when constructions and forms have been remodeled after the old Greek, incorrect elements, when discov- ered, are extirpated with more and more severity and tact. Before a new forma- tion is introduced into the regular lan- gnage, it has to stand a severe test and criticism. Nothing will be accepted and grafted into the regular language which deviates in any way from the genius of the Attic tongue. In the iniddle of the fifteenth century, after the fall of Constantinople, Greek fugitives came to all parts of Europe; and it was they who introduced the study of Greek and laid the foundation of the “Western” school. The fii’st act of this