Author : George M. Gould
Release : 2015-08-05
Genre : Science
Kind : eBook
Book Rating : 432/5 ( reviews)
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Book Synopsis A Dictionary of New Medical Terms by : George M. Gould
Download or read book A Dictionary of New Medical Terms written by George M. Gould. This book was released on 2015-08-05. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from A Dictionary of New Medical Terms: Including Upwards of 38, 000 Words and Many Useful Tables, Being a Supplement to "an Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine Biology, and Allied Sciences," Nothing so well illustrates the astonishing vitality and progress of present-day medical science as its unparalleled multiplication of new words. It is only ten years since I made what seemed then a thorough gathering of such new coinages and incorporated them in the "Illustrated Dictionary of Medicine, Biology, and Allied Sciences." It seemed at that time as if, for the most part, the possible phasings and discoveries of pathologic and physiologic conditions must have been made and designated with names. Since then I have kept an eye - and through friends and helpers, many eyes - upon the busy minting still proceeding unabated. That in a decade over 30,000 new terms should have been devised is almost incredible. It is doubtful if any other science or object of study has ever shown such a phenomenon. Nomina si nescis perit cognitio rerum, said Coke with the acumen of the legal mind, and it is generally true that the knowledge of things depends upon the knowledge of their names. Discoveries of new facts, or new standpoints for viewing old facts, demand new tags or "nicking" symbols whereby their status may be fixed and their recognition insured and made more clear for distant or future students. Few philosophic and scientific minds may exhibit an aloofness and a freedom from the tyranny of words to enable them to study things without the aid of words and namings. But nothing, it is admitted, is more blundering in a personal sense, and more harmful to the progress of science, than the exhaustion of interest so soon as a classification and nomenclature have been made. The ridiculous is only needed to end in the absurd, and this is generally supplied by their wrong pigeon-holing and false ticketing. A diagnosis once made, a mere word, long, mysterious, and meaningless, pinned upon the bunched symptoms, and further study of etiology, prophylaxis, or therapeutics is with too many at an end. Over 200 years ago Dr. South tried to check this "fatal imposture and force of words" by showing how "the generality of mankind is governed by words and names," not by things as they are, but as they are called - in a word, by "verbal magic." And yet in a groping science like medicine, one that inductively, slowly, and tenatively is feeling its way towards the truth, this need of naming every step forward is peculiarly necessary. It is the condition of securing the step in itself, and of guiding the aftercomers. It is the blazing of trails into the wilderness of the unknown. Closure may consequently be called upon the critic who may say that half the new words, or more, are the marks of trails which lead nowhither, and that have been abandoned before they can be sketched. Of course no one can tell what lines of research may finally prove the best and true, and none, therefore, what blazes will be useful or useless. New trails, shorter, easier, and better, may indeed be discovered, and when the wilderness country is settled, all trails will either be abandoned or become well-known roads. But even then good sign-posts and pointing index-fingers will be helpful for strangers, and some of the old names will never be discarded. None can foretell what words may die and what ones become a part of the language. Hence neither by guess nor by judgment may the lexicographer too recklessly exclude. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
