The Use of Eponyms in Modern Medical Terminology

Abstract

The paper examines the use of eponymic terms in different subsystems of medical terminology based on specialized dictionaries and reference books on the topic, offering the most complete collection of eponymous names of diseases and their signs. Historical and statistical data serve to explain and outline the diversity of sources eponymous terms can originate from, including information about scientists and countries whose proper names have come to denote medical phenomena and concepts. The authors pay special attention to eponymic derivatives forming the basis of modern medical clinical terminology in Russian, their relation to the names of medical scientists who first discovered and described certain phenomena in the process of research and in the course of medical practice. The naming features of symptoms, reflexes, tests, laws, phenomena, as well as symptom complexes, syndromes, and diseases of eponymic origin are studied in relation to the nationality of the cognominal figure, with due observations on the historical, cultural, and economic preconditions that influenced the formation of eponymic terms. The names of symptoms and diseases are classified according to their affiliation with the main clinical sections of medicine, followed by explanations and comments on the distribution logic, qualitative and quantitative features of the eponymic terms. Consequently, the paper discusses naming patters for the formation of eponymic terms in the clinical nomenclature and their quantitative assessment. The conclusion deals with the advantages and negative effects of using eponymic terminology, the role of eponymic terms in medical science and clinical practice.

Keywords

• eponym
• eponymic term
• medical terminology
• nominative pattern
• names of symptoms
• names of syndromes