Latin And Fundamentals Of Medical Terminology
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Latin And Fundamentals Of Medical Terminology
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The present paper offers an up-to-date view of the status of Latin as the language of medicine, namely in its terminological component. It is concerned in greater detail with the three basic terminological vocabularies in which a doctor cannot so far manage without its knowledge. In this sense a primary rank is occupied by anatomical nomenclature whose international version remains Latin in the full extent. A more varied picture is presented by the clinical disciplines where, apart from Latin terms, expressions of ancient provenance have been applied in a large measure in the form of ethnic languages. At the same time, particularly in view of the needs of computerisation, repeated attempts have appeared to support English, which has the greatest chance of becoming a new language in the particular region of clinical medicine. In pharmaceutical terminology Latin has, for the time being, remained a functioning means of international communication, guaranteed by the European Pharmacopoeia (1996) and by the corpus of International Non-proprietary Names (1992, 1996), even though in the future an ever stronger competition of national languages should be taken into account.
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Content available from CC BY-NC-ND 4.0:
Latin as the language of medical terminology: Some remarks on its role and prospects.pdf
Content uploaded by František Šimon
Content may be subject to copyright.
Latin as the language of medical terminology: Some remarks on its role and pro
Content available from CC BY-NC-ND 4.0:
Latin as the language of medical terminology: Some remarks on its role and prospects.pdf
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Latin as the language of medical terminology:
some remarks on its role and prospects
Department of Languages, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University , Brno, Czech Republic
afárik University , Kos ˇ ice, Slovak Republic
The branches of science in which Latin has
traditionally found its application involve indis-
putably medicine. While until the close of the
Middle Ages a medical text not written in Latin was
a rare exception, modern languages began to gain
ground with increasing intensity from the 16th
century on. Although in France there even was a
court case held against a certain doctor named Ri-
vière, in which he was accused of not being actually
able to be a doctor because he did not have a good
command of Latin [1], it was in France that Latin
first started retreating from medicine (cf. [2]), fol-
lowed by Italy and later England. On the other
hand, in Germany and in the central European
area Latin survived even in teaching until as late as
the 19th century [3]. The doctors themselves were
expressing dissatisfaction with this state of affairs;
e.g. the well-known German doctor L. Schönlein
mentioned in one of his letters in 1839 that using
Latin in clinical instruction was a considerable im-
pediment. In the natural sciences, which greatly
influence medicine, so many new terms have de-
veloped that seeking Latin words for them would
be in his opinion a waste of time. What remains is
either sacrifice new discoveries to the genius of the
ancient world or violate the language [4]. The re-
sult of these considerations was that in 1840 L.
Schönlein decided to deliver his inaugural lecture
for the Berlin Clinic in German. Similarly , the re-
to be a burden. However , in 1846 he was forced to
translate his inaugural lecture into Latin at the last
moment [5]. He had, at least at the end of it, con-
demned the use of Latin and declared: “Medici-
nam a linguae Latinae onere liberare conabor”
(i.e., I shall strive to free medicine from the bur-
den of Latin) [6]. In the course of the 19th century
this requirement could be fulfilled at last. For ex-
ample, at the medical faculty in Prague, some dis-
ciplines were read in Latin until the year 1848 [7].
But even after the abolishment of Latin as a teach-
ing and scientific language it has retained its nom-
inating function, and has preserved a permanent
position in the key component of the language of
Despite the obvious retreat of Latin from the
medical terminology in the 20th century , profes-
sional communicative acts in the national lan-
guages have so far been realised with the use of in-
ternational Latin-Greek terms. This state follows
from the advantages that have been generally
known: terminological continuity , on the one hand
The present paper offers an up-to-date view of
the status of Latin as the language of medicine,
namely in its terminological component. It is con-
cerned in greater detail with the three basic termi-
nological vocabularies in which a doctor cannot so
far manage without its knowledge. In this sense a
primary rank is occupied by anatomical nomen-
clature whose international version remains Latin
in the full extent. A more varied picture is pre-
sented by the clinical disciplines where, apart from
Latin terms, expressions of ancient provenance
have been applied in a large measure in the form
of ethnic languages. At the same time, particularly
in view of the needs of computerisation, repeated
attempts have appeared to support English, which
has the greatest chance of becoming a new lan-
guage in the particular region of clinical medicine.
In pharmaceutical terminology Latin has, for the
time being, remained a functioning means of in-
ternational communication, guaranteed by the
European Pharmacopoeia (1996) and by the cor-
pus of International Non-proprietary Names
(1992, 1996), even though in the future an ever
stronger competition of national languages should
Key wor ds: Latin; language of medicine; anatomical
nomenclature; clinical terminology; pharmaceutical
SWISS MED WKL Y 2002;132:581–587 · www .smw .ch
as regards space (it is a worldwide, universal ter-
minology , not bound to any nation), and on the
other hand as regards history (terms have been
used in a more or less unchanged form for over
2000 years). Apart from this, Latin and Greek con-
stitute a unique stock which may also be drawn
upon in case of the need of creating a new term.
The incomprehensibility of the two languages for
the patient is a specific moment of preference, as
it is not always in his or her interest to understand
the utterances of physicians. Thus the doctor
speaks an incomprehensible language and,
through a reversed logical process, the impression
may arise that if somebody uses an incomprehen-
sible terminology , she or he is a good doctor . W e
might designate this phenomenon as the mystery
of the foreign-language medical communication
at the doctor versus patient or professional ver-
sus layman level. This was already discovered by
Pliny the Elder (Naturalis historia 29,8,17), who
claimed, when speaking about ancient Romans
who did not know Greek, that such people “minus
credunt, quae ad salutem suam pertinent, si intel-
ligunt” (believe less what regards their own health,
if they understand). In modern times Montaigne
(Essais 3,11) expressed himself similarly:
“Maiorem fidem homines adhibent iis quae non
intellegunt” (People trust more what they do not
understand). However , with the decreasing knowl-
edge of Latin in the new generation of doctors
there is the menace of the risk referred to by a cer-
tain Slovakian professor at the faculty of medicine
who complained that as he spoke Latin while at the
patient’ s bedside so that the patient might not un-
derstand, the medical students did not understand
Furthermore, it should be noted that in the last
century there appeared a new phenomenon which
was menacing the special terminological function
of Latin in modern medicine – the English lan-
guage. There exist contradictory views of its status
and perspectives. These range from H. Lippert’ s
assertion [8] according to which English has taken
over the role of Latin in medicine, to the opinion
of the well-known German historian of medicine
H. Schipperges [6], who states that Latin with
Greek “have masterfully outlived” not only the
Arab influence in the Middle Ages, but also the
fierce onset of English in the 20th century . Based
on this experience he infers that in the future the
contemporary English pressure will only appear as
a historical interlude. W e are rather inclined to ac-
cept this conclusion because, besides other things,
English medical terminology is predominantly
When taking a cursory glance at the English
anatomical nomenclature, one is likely to note that
there is Latin present not only in the nominative
plural of some of the nouns, e.g.: fascia – fasciae, sul-
cus – sulci , but that there also occur nominative
plurals of some adjectives, e.g.: chordae tendineae,
foramina nervosa, rami communicantes . Further-
more, one will also find nouns in genitive singular
and genitive plural, e.g.: orbicularis oculi/oris, crista
galli, levator anguli oris, vasa vasorum, quadratus
lumborum , graded forms of Latin adjectives, e.g.:
scalenus minimus, latissimus dorsi, levator palpebrae
superioris, longissimus capitis , and even purely Latin
multiple-word terms, e.g.: flexor digiti minimi bre-
vis, levator labii alaeque nasi. When Latin forms are
borrowed, no system is observed in the English
nomenclature. W e have registered numerous in-
stances of pairs in which the English version of the
term or of its component is applied at one time,
and the Latin version at another time, e.g.: arteria
thyroidea ima – deepest layer of subcutaneous tissue,
foramen magnum – mental foramen, major/minor
salivary glands – greater/lesser vestibular glands . (The
examples used are given in T erminologia Anatom-
A similar situation is faced in clinical termi-
nology . Some terms of Graeco-Latin origin are
presented in an English variation, i.e. mainly with
Anglicised suffixes, e.g.: peptic ulcer , thromboembolic
pulmonary hypertension, acute viral gastroenteropathy,
congenital omental cyst . Others are used by the Eng-
lish professional terminology in their original
Latin wordings (naturally with an English pro-
nunciation), e.g.: salpingitis, nephrolithiasis, colitis
cystica profunda/superficialis, pseudomyxoma peritonei,
tinea unguium/manuum/pedum/capitis (examples
taken from the International Nomenclature of
Diseases [10]). Therefore, it is debatable whether
the English medical terminology can at all be rea-
sonably mastered without the knowledge of basic
Latin as the language of medical terminology
The following part of our paper will focus, in
a brief survey , on the three most important cor-
puses of terminology and on the role which Latin
plays in them at present. The first place has to be
reserved for the language of anatomy , where it has
gained the firmest position. All of the anatomical
nomenclatures produced so far have used Latin as
their base. A first legalisation and official ac-
knowledgement of the Latin anatomical nomen-
clature was reached thanks to the German
anatomists at a congress of the Anatomische
Gesellschaft in Basle in 1895. This step had re-
sulted from an urgent need in its time. The nom-
ination system had proved to be quantitatively sat-
urated and confused to the extent that it rendered
communication impossible, and thus it menaced at
the same time scientific research and the study of
medicine. The Basiliensia nomina anatomica (BNA,
1895) were then, apart from the original disunited
terminology , being used in anatomical institutions
and in professional publications until the year 1935
when, in Jena, it was again German specialists who
adopted another project of their own, differing in
many factual and linguistic aspects from the pre-
ceding project. The time of the origin of the
I(J)enaiensia nomina anatomica (I(J)NA, 1935),
falling within the era of fascism, probably fore-
shadowed the adverse fate of this codification. At
the same time, however , it complied with the high-
est criteria from the point of view of language, be-
cause in this case classicists had also been taking
part in the preparatory work in the form of con-
sultations [11]. After the Second W orld W ar this
corpus was rejected at a suggestion put forward by
American and Canadian anatomists, and a decision
was drawn to come back to the Basle names, which
were subjected to a conservative and thus only
minimal revision. The subsequent efforts, co-or-
dinated since 1950 by the newly established Inter-
national Anatomical Nomenclature Committee –
IANC, resulted in a third standardisation called
Parisiensia nomina anatomica , according to the
venue of the authorising congress (PNA, 1955).
From that time the Parisian nomenclature, later
(from 1965) referred to as Nomina anatomica (NA)
for short, has been published in six revised editions
worked out within the competence of the above-
mentioned committee. Its principal intention was
to reflect the current requirements, primarily to
introduce new terms for new concepts and to elim-
inate any shortcomings found both on the factual
and linguistic levels. Due to serious objections re-
lating to organisation and to persistent technical
disputes between the International Federation of
Anatomical Associations (IF AA) and the nomen-
clature committee, which culminated with the
publication of the sixth edition in 1989 in a form
showing little respect for the comments of a part
of the IF AA members, a further committee was es-
tablished under the auspices of the Federation
(Federative Committee on Anatomical T erminol-
ogy – FCA T). It was charged with elaborating “the
official terminology of the anatomical sciences”
[12], based on consultations with all the anatomi-
cal societies and emphasising the principle of
democracy in this collaboration. The key tasks in-
volved the naming of new structures, the intro-
duction of different terms and those so far used by
clinicians only . In addition, a request was presented
that the future versions should meet the demands
of all users, both in theoretical and in clinical dis-
ciplines. On the whole, this procedure may be un-
derstood as an attempt at changing over to a reg-
ulated, yet considerably more liberal treatment of
terms. This is in obvious contradiction to all the
preceding tendencies that had been striving delib-
erately to eliminate synonymous expressions. Fol-
lowing unsuccessful attempts at establishing a con-
tact to IANC, the new team chose the 5th edition
of NA, published in 1983, as its starting point.
They at first prepared a working version, which
they offered for a wide international evaluation
whose numerous suggestions were incorporated in
the final version. Then, in 1998, a new corpus of
anatomical terms was published, called T er minolo-
gia Anatomica [9]. It is worth mentioning that the
FCA T confirmed Latin expressis verbis as the lan-
guage of “definitive terminology”. This had previ-
ously happened only once, at the 8th International
Congress of Anatomists in W iesbaden (1965). In
his article presenting the new nomenclature to the
expert public, I. Whitmore [12], chairman of the
FCA T , considers it necessary to explain the reasons
for such decision to possible sceptics. He points
out that Latin as a dead language no longer devel-
ops and does not belong exclusively to any coun-
try or nation. Its use in terminology can, accord-
ing to Whitmore, be characterised as global and
“non-secular”, i.e. destined for the whole world
and professional layers. This means that, out of the
number of advantages that classical languages
offer , it is constancy , international character , and
neutrality (unlike national languages) that are ac-
centuated. The professional benefit of the new
corpus of nomenclature was assessed favourably by
J. Drukker [13]. In conclusion of this section we
would like to remark that all the editions of Nom-
ina anatomica, including the latest, bear evidence
of non-participation of Latinists in their revision,
which unnecessarily decreases the linguistic level
SWISS MED WKL Y 2002;132:581–587 · www .smw .ch
A substantially more complicated and less
consistent image is provided by the terminology
of the clinical disciplines. It is comprehensible
because, first, its range is much larger (up to 60
thousand terms according to some estimates) and,
second, there is a difference between the descrip-
tive disciplines such as anatomy and histology on
the one hand, and clinical medicine, which un-
dergoes far more serious upheavals, on the other .
The causes of some diseases have namely been
unknown as yet, and there even appear new dis-
eases whose names are later subject to the devel-
opment of opinions on their origin, therapy , and
Clinical terms as well as terms relating to
pathological anatomy may be encountered in med-
ical literature, in the doctor’ s current practice when
writing out case records, in diagnoses relating to
pathological anatomy , and in normative hand-
books of medical terminology . As far as the use of
terms in the literature is concerned, apart from
some new expressions coming from English, e.g.
in Czech stres, by-pass, katgut / ketgat , there still pre-
vail traditional terms of Graeco-Latin origin,
though ever more frequently in the national lan-
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