An expository lexicon of the terms, ancient and modern, in medical and general science : including a complete medico-legal vocabulary and presenting the correct pronunciation ... / by R.G. Mayne.

Mayne, R. G. (Robert Gray), 1808-1868.

Date:: 1860

Credit: An expository lexicon of the terms, ancient and modern, in medical and general science : including a complete medico-legal vocabulary and presenting the correct pronunciation ... / by R.G. Mayne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

27/1538 page 9

$and, while freedom is ceded as to tlieir employment substantively in speech or writing, it is worse than useless to create pseudo-nouns only to please a mistaken fancy; in their proper form as adjectives they serve every purpose. They, severally, are the neuter of an adjective (requiring corpus or liquidum* to be understood). No doubt they are often employed alone, as we say and write an acid, a caustic, the lunar caustic, but only idiomatically; for though perfectly familiarized to this use of them, let it be asked, Acid what? or, Caustic what? and we at once perceive their incompleteness, and the blunder of characterising them as nouns. 2. Ephemera forms another instance of the loose manner in which medical terminology has been constructed, being given as a noun of the first declension, a fever of a day's du- ration. It is the nom. sing. fern, of the adjective ^^^/iements. iS^/iemera, carries no indi- cation of fever, but, signifying pertaining to a day, is applied (febris understood) to a fever, the exacerbation of which recurs every twenty-four hours ; while the same spelling, but the nom. pi. n., is applied to the genera, or kinds of insects that live but one day. 3. The titles, Narcotics, Antispasmodics, Tonics, etc., given to certain groups of me- dicines according to their qualities, ore without distinct grammatical status. The only one characterised at all is represented as Cholagogus, i, m., from x-^^' bile, and &ycD, to drive away.t Some are explained as applied adjectively and substantively, while another, Es- charotic, is declared to be a substance which, etc. Such imperfect information creates confusion, especially in the mind of the young student; they all imply, as proper to them, the general character of nouns, but erroneously so; they, and every other of similar appli- cation, being adjectives or participles, agreeing with haustus, potio, medicamentum, or some similar noun, understood in the singular or plural. 4. Fibrine, Stearine, Salicine, etc., the names of certain chemical principles discovered in animal, vegetable, and mineral substances, are spelled in two modes, according to whim or caprice, as fibrin smA fibrine, lignin and lignine. The difference is slight, yet suflScient to render its removal desirable. It would be difficult to decide by special rule which is tlae best, but at least we ought not to have both. The final e is superfluous as to sound: we do not properly say, fibrijig or Wgnine, giving the last syllable as in the English numeral nine, but pronounce according to the true Latin sound of the letter i, as if iahxeen and hgnecn, etc., adopting, in fact, the Latin words themselves, short only of their terminating letter.]: It is superfluous, also, as to their sense or status. But, by maintaining it in these words, a confusion is created between some of them used as names of chemical principles and like- wise as adjectives; for example, Crystalline is the name of one of the products of Indigo, and it is at the same time an adjective expressing relation to, having the nature of a crystal. This confusion will be avoided by discarding the final e from the former, and every word like it,—crystallin,—and by letting it remain in the latter. 5. There is no unifoi-mity, no settled understanding as to the manner of rendering into English orthography those Greek derived Latin terms in which the diphthongs te and ce occur. The former of these is by many adopted into the English, as Hfemorrhage, Hsema- phein, while many change it into e, as Hemorrhage, Hemaphein, etc. The latter is to be pre- ferred; it is more simple, more English, and there is abundant precedent for holding ic to be more correct,—Spherical, from Sphmricus, Demon, from Damon, Equal, from ^qualis, etc. The diphthong ce, ^yhich is frequently employed in English, as in foetus, festal, foetor, foetid, and sometimes changed into e, as fetus, fetal, fetor, fetid, falls under the same remark, and for like reasons the substitution of the e in the English seems preferable : nor is autho- rity wanting for this mutation, as Economy from QSconomia, Penal, from Paina, etc. A difli- culty presents itself as to the English analogues of Latin terms ending in -cca, as Gonorrhoea, Otorrhaa, etc.; but these are adopted as they stand, not translated into English, and the rule should be, in writing or printing, to underline, or render in itaUo type, as significant of theif Latin form. 0. The terminal TcHS, the equivalent of-i/cbs, is of very frequent use for the forming of compound adjectives from existing nouns, to which it is added for that purpose. It conveys to them simply the quality of relation to that which the noun signifies. 7. The addition of the terminal -ismus, analogue of -itrfihs, to form a compound noun m., confers upon it the sense of existence or condition, exercise or practice, of that signified by the etymon to which it is added, as lodismus (lodinium and-ismus), the existence of efi'eets, or the condition produced by the use of iodine, Albinismus, the ctindition of the Albino, Catheterismug {Catheter, -ismus), the practice of using, or the introduction of the catheter. 8. The terminol -igo, from ago, to do or act, denotes in its general and obvious sense, the act or state implied in the word to which it is joined. It seems, however, in my apprehension, to have had a more particular meaning, viz., over-action, as if the various morbid conditions indicated by the names into which it enters, were caused by repletion of the system, the result of this over-action or excessive indulgence in whatever is calculated to produce it. The opinion may be a mistaken one, but all the compound names referred to are consistent with its import. ♦ Liquidum, apparently inoonnistont with the above remarks, is really reoognisod as a noun, signifying water, moisture, or liquid:—Gouldman, Littleton, Aiusworth, etc. + Hooper. t 'I'he r.atin i, it may bo neccsaary to state, rooeivos the sound bore expressed on tbo Continent, and ■wlioro- cver that language, pure or mixed, is spokoii or taught, and not that given to it in England : for example, virus is pronounced tJCcrus, not i!;/ruH. It has boon and gcuorally is so taught ihrougliout Scotland. b$