Introductory address delivered at University College London on the occasion of the Opening of the Medical Session on October 3rd, 1881 / by George Vivian Poore.

  • George Vivian Poore
Date:
[1881?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory address delivered at University College London on the occasion of the Opening of the Medical Session on October 3rd, 1881 / by George Vivian Poore. 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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    promulgators of International Congresses tlie desirability of appoint- ing a committee to settle once and for all the names by which the anatomical and histological elements of the human body are hence- forth to be known. I do not of course mean to suggest that existing names should be altered. Utterly bad as many of them are, we have become accustomed to them by use, and the very antiquity of many of them, and the fact that some are derived from the names of the older anatomists, serve to give an historic interest to dry facts, and to remind us how laboriously and slowly our knowledge has been pieced together by the great men who have preceded us. Although we are, I think, bound to accept and continue to use existing names, it is, nevertheless, interesting and instructive to compare the Saxon anatomical and physiological terms, so wonder- ful in their simplicity and striking individuality, which originally came to us by the light of nature with those which have since been added by the light of science. We cannot conceive simpler words, or words less liable to misconception, either by the eye or ear, than head, necle, eye, nose, skin hack, month, tooth, ley, arm, (jut, touch, pain, ache, taste, smell, sight, sound, sweat, and many other most ex- pressive monosyllables, some of which we happily still continue to use, while others have long since been cast aside as “vulgar” (what- ever that may mean). Although we still use the simpler words, we seem half ashamed of them, for whenever we get a chance we make use of our hybrid jargon, and give our pure-bred Sa^on the cut direct. The chances are that if a medical winter wishes to speak of the mouth, he calls it the oral orifice. The nose becomes the olfactory organ; the skin of the back is the dorsal integument; touch is tactile sensibility; pain is an algesic phenomenon; a fit of the stomach-ache is a gastralgic crisis; tears become lachrymation, and sweating's, diaphoresis. In compound words this tendency is more marked, and it is strange how completely we have cast aside the pure Saxon lore in favour of logy, an Anglo-Greek mongrel. The man who talks of ophthal- mology or odontology, would certainly not consent to use such ex- pressions as eye-lore or tooth-lore; and the professor of anthropology would certainly tell us that he had nothing to do with folk-lore. Now I believe that even in scientific anatomy each nation would do well to adhere, as far as possible, to its own vernacular mono- syllables, for since anything like a common medical language is not to be dreamt of, and since it is necessary to learn French and German in order to understand ■ French and German medical writings, these terms, which are always amongst the simplest and oldest in the language, are never a source of difficulty. The Greek and Latin terms given by the older anatomists, cumbersome and singularly inexpressive as many of them are, must be retained ; but if they be retained, they must be retained in their original form,