Date: Thu, 8 Jan 1998 01:19:26 EST

From: Bapopik Bapopik[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]AOL.COM

Subject: BOOK REVIEW: Medical Meanings: A Glossary of Word Origins



BOOK REVIEW:



MEDICAL MEANINGS: A GLOSSARY OF WORD ORIGINS

by William S. Haubrich, M.D., F.A.C.P.

American College of Physicians, 1997

253 pages, $29.95



This book reminds me of LADYFINGERS & NUN'S TUMMIES (about food words).

You read it, and it's mildly interesting. Then you realize this has been done

before, probably several times before. Then you check a few entries. Then

you start to get really mad!

In a year, this is the type of book that could appear on the Barnes &

Noble or Strand book store discount shelves, and at $8.95 you'll go home

happy. At $29.95 for 253 pages (without illustrations or charts or diagrams),

you want your money back.

The jacket states, "Enjoyable for browsing, indispensable for research

(really?--ed.), _Medical Meanings_ is a unique volume (unique?--ed.), one sure

to please students, physicians, and word connoisseurs." There you have it.

I'm sure to be pleased!

Author Haubrich, the back flap tells us, has written more than 115

original or review articles for major medical journals and served as

consultant in the life sciences for THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF THE

ENGLISH LANGUAGE, 3RD EDITION.

Basically, a word is presented, the Latin and Greek roots are explained,

and that's it!! No historical citations. No slang and current jargon. The

book looks like it could have been written 500 years ago!

There's no bibliography. In the acknowledgments, the author credits Henry

Alan Skinner's THE ORIGIN OF MEDICAL TERMS (1949, 1961 2nd ed.), the OED,

DORLAND'S ILLUSTRATED MEDICAL DICTIONARY, Skeat's ETYMOLOGICAL

DICTIONARY,

Brewer's DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE, BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY, Patridge's

A

SHORT ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN ENGLISH, and the OXFORD

DICTIONARY OF

ENGLISH ETYMOLOGY. No wonder it seems musty.

No credit is given to 1995's CURRENT MED TALK: A DICTIONARY OF MEDICAL

TERMS, SLANG & JARGON by Joseph Segen. That book (which may soon be headed

for a second edition) is much more current and lively, and included article

citations. It was not an historical dictionary and it looked more like a med

tome than DARE or the RHHDAS, but it was a grand, long-overdue start.

For example, "gaspers" is not in MEDICAL MEANINGS, nor is "auto-erotic

asphyxiation"--medical terms we discussed here on ADS-L. I looked up a bunch

of sex terms such as "homosexual" and "transvestite"--neither is in MEDICAL

MEANINGS, but "homo-" and "trans-" are. How unique!

I got on Amazon.com and found out that MEDICAL TERMS: THEIR ROOTS AND

ORIGINS by A. R. Tindall was due out August 1997, but I haven't seen it yet.

A book called MEDICAL TERMINOLOGY FROM GREEK AND LATIN by Sandra Thompson

and

Lawrence Petterson was published in June 1978. The "unique" MEDICAL MEANINGS

did not cite it. Also not cited in the "unique" MEDICAL MEANINGS is MEDICAL

TERMINOLOGIES: CLASSICAL ORIGINS by John Scarbrorough, published in November

1992.

The words in MEDICAL MEANINGS are presented alphabetically and are not

grouped at all by any medical specialty. Thanks a lot. I haven't read the

reviews, but CHOICE (October 1997, pp. 275-276) gave the book a favorable

review and JAMA (August 27, 1997, pp. 688-689) gave it a mixed review.

AMERICAN SPEECH hasn't reviewed it.

Although there are many medical dictionaries and word books, a top-quality

historical dictionary of medical terminology (that includes slang and jargon)

is still needed. If you buy both CURRENT MED TALK and MEDICAL MEANINGS,

you'll have spent about $80 and you'll have come close, but you still won't

have that cool medical word book/database that you can impress on your friends

who watch ER.