Lesson 20: Naming of Diseases and Treatments
- Objectives
- Medical Endings
- Disease Naming
- Drugs
- The Development of Modern Medicine
- Vocabulary List
- Vocabulary Practice
- Reflection Questions
Objectives
- Learn how endings are used in names of diseases and drugs
- Overview of how Greek and Latin disease names are formed
- Introduction to drug naming
Medical Endings
Recall from Unit 2 that endings are a special class of suffixes that indicate what part of speech a word is, and provide further context clues to its meaning. We’ve seen some of these endigns before. Now let’s look at these in detail.
The ending -osis indicates a condition or disease, often one that is abnormal or pathological. This is frequently used to describe diseases related to the abnormal function or structure of a specific body system, often with adjective roots that further describe physical symptoms. For example, cirrhosis refers to a liver condition marked by liver scarring and eventual failure. The root cirrh means “tawny”, referring to the unhealthy color in the late stages. Similarly, scoliosis refers to an abnormal curvature of the spine (scoli meaning “twisted” or “curved”).
The ending -itis refers to inflammation, and is used to describe diseases or conditions where a specific part of the body is inflamed due to infection, injury, or autoimmune reactions. For instance, arthritis involves the inflammation of the joints, while gastritis refers to the inflammation of the stomach lining.
The endings -ia and -y (recall that they mean the same thing!) often refer to conditions or states that are abnormal or diseased. -ia is used to denote a state or condition, while -y can denote a process or state, often linked to an abnormality. An example is anemia (a deficiency of red blood cells or hemoglobin), which reflects a state of low oxygen-carrying capacity in the blood. Another example is hypothermia, a condition in which a person’s body temperature becomes unhealthily low.
The ending -sis is used in terms that describe processes or conditions that involve a certain state or activity, often chronic or progressive. For example, hypnosis refers to a state of consciousness that may involve changes in brain chemistry, while lysis refers to the breaking down of cells or tissues, often as a result of infection or chemical exposure. These suffixes highlight the chemical processes that are either disrupted or triggered by certain conditions in the body.
Finally, the ending -oid, often seen in the plural -oids, is used for conditions that might resemble another anatomical feature or condition, but they’re not identical. For example, a fibroid resembles muscle or tissue fibers, but they are actually a type of tumor. A cystoid is an accumulation of fluids or tissues that resembles a cyst, but lacks the membrane that typical cysts have.
Disease Naming
While endings reflect the type of condition or disease, roots tend to reflect the cause of the condition or the affected region, such as bacteremia (the presence of bacteria in the bloodstream) or cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle). This practice of using disease-causing agents or pathological processes as part of the naming system helps not only in identifying the disease but also in understanding its etiology, or its origin.
Most diseases are named either after the symptoms they cause or the body parts they affect. For instance, pneumonia refers to an infection of the lungs, combining the base pneumon with the ending -ia. Cardiovascular diseases are a class of diseases that affect the heart (cardio) and blood vessels (vascular), while diseases of the digestive system such as colitis (inflammation of the colon) use the root word “col-“ to indicate the colon as the affected body part. In this way, the structure and function of the body system being targeted play a significant role in the disease’s nomenclature.
A number of bacterial or viral diseases are named for the physical characteristics of the vector. A well-known example from recent years is the coronavirus, so called because of the virus cells’ resemblance to a crown (corona in Latin).
Some diseases are named after the person who discovered them, such as Alzheimer’s disease, named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer, who first identified the condition in 1906. Similarly, Lou Gehrig’s disease (the formal name for which is Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or ALS) is named after the famous baseball player who was diagnosed with it. This naming practice serves as a tribute to the contributions of these individuals, whose observations or experiences helped increase awareness and understanding of these medical conditions.
In some cases, diseases are named for the places where they were first identified or studied. Ebola virus disease, for instance, is named after the Ebola River in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the disease was first recognized. This type of naming can be useful for tracking the origin and spread of infectious diseases, and can also be a useful historical reference for healthcare researchers and professionals.
Drugs
Drug Classes
Drugs are categorized into various classes based on their chemical composition, mechanism of action, and therapeutic effects. For example, antibiotics are a class of drugs used to treat infections caused by bacteria (which are living organisms). Within antibiotics, there are further subdivisions such as penicillins, macrolides, and tetracyclines, all of which are named for their chemical compositions. Penicillin derives its name from the Latin word for “brush” or “broom”, a nod to its broom-like chains in its chemical structure. You might recognize the root macro in macrolide, a reference to its ring-like structure containing at least 15 or 16 atoms. Tetra and cycl together mean “four circles”, which reference the four ring-like structures in the molecules of these compounds.
Another important drug class is antipyretics, which are used to reduce fever. Pyr is a root typically meaning “fire”, but in the context of the human body, usually means “fever”. Generally, drug classes will use Greek and Latin terms like the ones you’re familiar with. However, the naming of specific drugs introduces several new roots coined from chemistry and pharmacology.
Drug Names
Most drugs have two names: their generic name, which is used by doctors and pharmacists, and their brand name or trade name under which they are sold or prescribed. The generic name is typically a simplified version of the drug’s chemical structure or its active ingredient. For example, ibuprofen comes from its chemical makeup: “iso-butyl-propanoic-phenolic acid”. Some of its brand names include Advil or Motrin.
Drug names are assigned by organizations like the United States Adopted Names (USAN) Council or the WHO INN Programme, who uses guidelines similar to the IUPAC’s guidelines on naming new elements. Specifically, according to the USAN, new drug names are evaluated on the following criteria:
- Whether a name reflects the drug action and fits the naming scheme.
- How well a name translates into languages other than English.
- How easy a name is to pronounce and remember.
While drug names themselves are fairly straightforward when broken down, analysis of their names requires a knowledge of linguistic roots that go beyond the Latin and Greek you’ve learned in this class. For example, benzodiazepines are a class of depressants used to treat anxiety and seizures. You might recognize dia and epi, but the root benzo comes from the Arabic term lubān jāwī, indicating its origin as a resin from Java.
Further, brand names are typically chosen by the pharmaceutical company that develops and markets the drug. In some cases, brand names might just be words that the companies make up that have little to do with Greek or Latin. “Advil” presumably has nothing to do with the Latin root ad, and vil is not a root that we’ve learned so far.
For this class, it suffices to know how drugs get their generic and brand names, rather than what these names mean.
The Development of Modern Medicine
Post-Classical Medicine
We have seen how scholarship in the Islamic world preserved a lot of ancient Roman and Greek knowledge following the fall of the Roman empire. This is also true for medical knowledge. As we have seen earlier, the foundations of medical thinking during this time were heavily influenced by the Hippocratic school, which promoted a rational, observational approach to medicine. Humoralism continued to be a central philosophy in medicine at this time.
In the Islamic Golden Age, one of the most influential medical scholars was Avicenna (Ibn Sina), a Persian polymath whose work, The Canon of Medicine, became a standard medical text in both the Islamic world and medieval Europe for centuries.
Avicenna synthesized Greek, Roman, and earlier Islamic medical knowledge, while also introducing concepts such as evidence-based observation and clinical trials for treatments. The Canon was used as a medical reference text in both the Middle East and Europe and was used well into the 17th century, into the years of the Scientific Revolution. Like Celsus, Avicenna also emphasized the importance of patients’ mental health and further advocated for fair and humane treatment for mentally ill patients.
The word “Canon” actually comes from the Arabic “al-Qānūn”!
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment in the late 17th through 18th centuries marked a shift toward empirical science and rational thought in all areas, including medicine. It was spurred on by the Scientific Revolution and the desire for progress based on experimentation and observation through scientific methods.
At first, convents played a crucial role in the development of nursing. Nuns often served as caregivers in hospitals, providing both spiritual support and basic medical care. This laid the foundation for the professionalization of nursing in later centuries and the need for and recognition of nurses in later hospitals.
Although outdated by modern standards, the miasma theory became a popular explanation for the spread of diseases. This is related to the Greek concept of miasma, which suggested that diseases were caused by “bad air” or poisonous vapors. This theory prompted early efforts in what we would consider to be public health policies. Cities and towns began to enact laws intended to improve sanitation and urban planning to reduce foul odors, and these inadvertently also improved people’s general health and quality of life.
Surgery also began to evolve during this era, with increased emphasis on anatomical study and technique. Surgeons like John Hunter in Britain advanced the field through dissection and experimentation, helping distinguish surgery as a scientific discipline rather than a trade.
Prior to the development of surgery as a profession, it was more of a service that could be done by other trade workers, particularly barbers. If you’ve ever seen a barber’s pole, the red and white stripes symbolized blood and bandages, indicating that barbers would also provide surgical services!
Widespread warfare in Europe throughout the later half of the 18th century, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars, also forced the armies of many nations (particularly France) to make major developments in trauma surgery and mobile medical care to keep up with the sheer scale of combat injuries. Similar to how medicine in Rome developed as a result of military practices, many European nations saw medical advancements as a result of battlefield medicine.
Dominique Jean Larrey was the chief surgeon in Napoleon's army who is credited with a slew of advancements in emergency and trauma medicine, including the invention of the ambulance volante (flying ambulance) to more effectively transport wounded soldiers from the battlefield and the development of a triage system where patients were treated on the basis of the severity of their wounds rather than by their rank or title in the army. Larrey's triage system was foundational to the principles of disaster and emergency care today, too.
Modern Developments
By the 19th century, hospitals in Europe had transformed from religious charitable institutions into secular centers for medical treatment, research, and education. The recognition of the germ theory of disease, primarily through the work of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch, revolutionized medicine by identifying microorganisms as the cause of many diseases. This paradigm shift led to major advances in sanitation practices, such as handwashing, sterilization, and waste management, drastically reducing infection rates.
<p>One of the most influential figures in nursing and hospital reform was <b>Florence Nightingale</b>, an English nurse who revolutionized the way that nursing was organized and perceived. During the Crimean War, she introduced hygiene protocols and collected data to advocate for better hospital conditions. Her efforts helped establish nursing as a respected profession grounded in scientific principles. Further, Nightingale is credited with developing early forms of data visualization in order to more effectively communicate statistics about her patients.</p>
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The following is a coxcomb diagram that Nightingale created to show the different causes of mortality among the English army in the Crimean war. Each “slice” indicates a month, the sizes indicate the relative number of deaths, and the colors indicate the causes. The blue represents “deaths from Preventible or Mitigable Zymotic disease”, or preventable infections. (The red and black indicate deaths from wounds or other causes, respectively.) The diagram shows that the majority of soldiers were dying from preventable causes, which helped Nightingale argue for improved sanitary and living conditions for the soldiers under her watch.
Technological advancements further propelled medicine into the modern era. The discovery of x-rays by Wilhelm Röntgen in 1895 opened the door to diagnostic imaging, allowing physicians to observe the internal structures of the body non-invasively. This field has since expanded to include technologies such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) scans, which are now central to diagnostic medicine.
These developments collectively mark the transition from traditional, often speculative medical practices to a more evidence-based, technologically advanced healthcare system.
Vocabulary List
| Root | Language of origin | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| spondyl | Greek | vertebrae, spine | spondylitis |
| scler(o) | Greek | hard, to harden | sclerosis |
| xer | Greek | dry | Xerox |
| spas(m) | Greek | to jerk, to move violently | spasm |
| camp(t) | Greek | to twist, to turn | camptosaur |
| poi(e) | Greek | to make | onomatopoeia |
| cyst | Greek | sac | cystic |
| thromb | Greek | to clot (as of blood) | thrombosis |
| cirrh | Greek | tawny | cirrhosis |
| rrho/rrhea | Greek | flow, discharge, current | diarrhea |
| scoli(o) | Greek | twisted | scoliosis |
| sept/seps(i) | Greek | putrid | septic |
| sapr(o) | Greek | putrid, rotting | saprogenic |
| mim(e) | Greek | to copy, to imitate | mimic |
| necr(o) | Greek | death, dying | necromancy |
| pleur | Greek | side, rib | pleurodynia |
| sthen(o) | Greek | strength | calisthenics |
| tuber | Latin | lump, swelling | tuberous |
| cav | Latin | hollow | cavity |
| press | Latin | to press | pressure |
| varix/varic | Latin | swollen, twisted | varicose |
| articul | Latin | joint, utterance | articulation |
| rupt | Latin | to break, to burst | erupt |
| coll | Latin | neck | collar |
| sulc | Latin | furrow, groove | sulcus |
| cer | Latin | wax, waxy | triceratops |
| lat | Latin | wide | latitude |
| later | Latin | side, sideways | lateral |
Vocabulary Practice
Practice Set A: Identify the roots in each of the following words, give their language of origin, and their definitions. Also give their part of speech. Then, following the guidelines in Lesson 4, arrange the definitions of the individual roots to create a literal definition.
- spasmodic
- compressor
- antiseptic
- hydropoiesis
- sclera
- mimesis
- rupture
- osteonecrosis
- hematocyst
- polyspondyly
- multisulcate
- comorbidity
- abruption
- inarticulate
- dilation
Reflection Questions
- Like some organisms we saw in Unit 1, some diseases bear the names of their discoverers (e.g., Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s). Do you find this problematic or misleading? Why or why not?
- What similarities and differences do you see in how endings are used in medical and chemical vocabulary?
- Look through the drug naming guide provided in the end of the lesson. What endings do you notice? How are they similar or different from the ones we’ve learned in class?
- Why do you think it’s important for drugs to have both generic and brand names? What are some benefits and drawbacks to a double-naming system like this?