The fascinating characteristic of medical terminology, however, is that the vast majority of its origins relate back to Greek and Latin, which were considered the language of the scholars and intelligentsia until the 19th century. Greek being the primary language from the time of Hippocrates in 4th century B.C. to almost the 15th century, and Latin obtaining the forefront of medicine until the mid-1800s (Wulff, 2004).
The benefit of these languages for us is that we bypass the lack of rhyme and reason exhibited in our English language today, and instead use constant prefixes, roots, and suffixes that can be broken apart, switched, added to, and replaced to form new medical words that one can understand, simply by knowing a few key shortcut items instead of learning a whole new language.
A few key items that I have found helpful in my own healthcare career include:
Organs - Ever wonder where all these scary names came from like "hepatitis" or "endocarditis"? The Greeks had names for our organs that, while most English names deviate from, still remain the same in the medical field, such as:
Cardio - Heart
Hepato - Liver
Nephro - Kidney
Pneumo - Lungs
Oopho - Ovaries
Chole - Gallbladder
Gastro - Stomach
Encephalo - Brain
Phleb/Phlebo - Veins
Arterio - Arteries
Myo - Muscles
Rhino - Nose (I know, who knew, right?)
Oto - Ears
Oculo - Eyes
Oro - Mouth
Osteo - Bones
Utero - Uterus (Womb)
Cysto - Bladder
Other helpful endings include;
-Itis = Inflammation
(Hepato = Liver, Itis = Inflammation) Hepatitis = Liver inflammation! There, that wasn't so scary was it?
-Oma = Cancer (Carcinoma)
- In = Almost always means protein. (Laminin, Globulin)
- Sone/One = Steroid (Cortisone)
- Ectomy = Removal of (Lobectomy = Removal of lobe of lung)
- Endo = In, Inner (Endocarditis - Inflammation in the heart)
- Exo = Outer (Exotoxin - A toxin secreted by certain pathogens, especially bateria)
- Supra = Above (Supraventricular = Above the ventricle)
- Epi = Above (Epidermis = Above the dermis)
- Sub = Below (Subcutaneous layer = Below the cutaneous layer)
- Dys = Disfuntion, difficulty, or pain (Dysuria - Painful urination)
- Patho = Bad (Pathogen - Producer of bad; aka germ)
-Hemo = Blood
-Philia = Lover of
While these terms do not always have the _exact_ meaning, they are great tools to live by if you ever have to frequent a hospital, doctor's office, or have medical friends who just like to sound smart. ;P
A helpful resource for other medical words (or even English words) that you'd like more info in is:
* For Mac users, the Oxford American dictionary that comes on your dashboard is frankly the best dictionary I've ever owned. It gives you the origin, history, and literal meaning of the word at the bottom of each entry. AND the best part is that you don't need the internet.
* For any other computer users, you can use http://oxforddictionaries.com/, which allows you to define your words by them for free. Unfortunately, they do not include the origins with the words automatically, so you have to break apart the words and insert each prefix, root, and suffix in manually to obtain the literal meaning, or language origin.
- Ex. Endocarditis, Type in Endo- , Cardio-, -Itis.
* I also recently found that wikipedia has a very thorough list of medical prefixes, roots, and suffixes, that are invaluable to the neophyte and amateur alike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_medical_roots,_suffixes_and_prefixes.
Hope this proves as helpful to you as it has been for me.
Happy learning!
Reference:
Wulff, H. R. (2004). The language of medicine. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 97(4).
Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1079361/.
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