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A Glossary of Word Origins $33.00 W illiam S. Haubrich's revision and expansion of Medical Meanings: A Glossary of Word Origins is as charming and informative as the successful first edition. Witty and stylish, and sometimes surprising, Medical Meanings gives the origins of more than 3000 words and phrases. Among the nearly 300 new entries: Andromeda strain is a term applied to any microorganism whose accidental release from a laboratory might have catastrophic effects because its potential properties are incompletely known. In Greek mythology, Andromeda was a ravishing Ethiopian princess rescued from the clutches of an evil monster by Perseus. Her name was given to a genus of evergreen shrubs and also to a constellation in the northern sky. From the latter, Michael Crichton took the title of his 1969 novel in which an unknown type of bacteria escapes from a returning space probe and threatens to contaminate planet Earth. ergasthenia is a state of impairment caused by overwork, at one time or another a complaint uttered by almost every medical student. The term combines derivatives of the Greek ergon, "work," and asthenos, "weakness." SARS is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a recently recognized, potentially lethal affliction that originated in China and was rapidly spread by air travelers around the globe. The culprit is a corona virus. As these entries indicate, Medical Meanings is designed not just to teach but to entertain. Students, physicians, and word connoisseurs alike will find this an indispensable volume for enjoyable browsing and research. MEDICAL MEANINGS Second Edition Also Available from the American College of Physicians On Being a Doctor I, II The Quotable Osler Medicine in Quotations Publications from the BMJ Publishing Group and select others are available to members through the American College of Physicians. Our Resources for Internists catalog and ordering information for the American College of Physicians and BMJ Publishing Group are available from www.acponline.org or by contacting: Customer Service Center American College of Physicians 190 N. Independence Mall West Philadelphia, PA 19106-1572 215-351-2600 800-523-1546, ext. 2600 A Glossary of Word Origins Second Edition s. William Haubrich, MD, FACP AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS Philadelphia AICIP Manager, Books Program: Diane M. McCabe Production Supervisor: Allan S. Kleinberg Production Editor: Karen C. Nolan Editorial Coordinator: Alicia Dillihay Interior and Cover Design: Larry DiDona Copyright © 2003 by American College of Physicians All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means (electronic, mechanical, xerographic, or other) or held in any information storage or retrieval systems without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America Composition by UB Communications Printing/binding by R.R. Donnelley Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Haubrich, William S. Medical meanings : a glossary of word origins I William S. Haubrich. - 2nd ed. p. cm. ISBN 1-930513-49-6 (alk. paper) 1. Medicine-Terminology. 2. English language-Etymology-Dictionaries. I. Title. [DNLM: 1. Medicine-Dictionary-English. W 15 H368m 2003] R123.H29 1997 610'. 1'4-dc21 96-29494 DNLM/DLC CIP for Library of Congress 04 05 06 07 I 9 8 7 6 s 4 3 2 Dedicated to the curiosity of all students of medicine, young and old ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Afascination with words, how they evolved, and how they are used is not a genetically determined trait. It must be instilled. My early inter est was jogged by exacting public school teachers in my hometown of Bexley, Ohio, then spurred on by my preceptors at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, notably Dr. James M. Darlington in bi ology and Dr. W. Nelson Francis in English. My professor of pathology at Western Reserve University (now Case-WRU) was an erudite, demanding, and inspiring taskmaster when it came to precise description of disease. Early in my professional career I acquired a copy of The Origin of Medical Terms by Henry Alan Skinner, a classical scholar and professor of anatomy at the University of Western Ontario, and for me this book became a well thumbed vade mecum. Anyone seeking to learn about biomedical terms must have access to various sources. A shelfful of dictionaries, in English and other languages, comes in handy. The ultimate authority will be the Oxford English Dictionary. For composition by computer, I recommend Infopedia 2.0. Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, now available in its 30th edition, is in my opinion the most comprehensive source of precise definitions. For background informa tion, Skeat's venerable Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Bulfinch's Mythology, and the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, among other references, are indispensable. I must mention, too, the help given by my professional colleagues, at home and abroad, who advised me on words peculiar to their special fields. Howard Sandum of New York, a perceptive editor, initially urged me to sys tematize the notes I had collected over a number of years, then shepherded production of the original edition of this book in 1984. Opportunity to bring out subsequently revised and expanded editions has been generously af forded by Mary K. Ruff and Diane McCabe at the publishing division of the American College of Physicians. Finally, I am grateful to my wife Eila for her encouragement and for bearance. William S. Haubrich, MD, FACP vii