Nomenclature of Diseases

130 THE INDIAN MEDICAL GAZETTE. [May 1, 1877. NOMENCLATURE OF DISEASES. have been wise to have given up this right, and simply, instead of naming a Committee, hare nominated four or five That the Royal College of Physicians of London deserves the members and then have asked tiie College of Surgeons to name gratitude of the Profession and of the world for publishing the a similar number, who with the various official members should Nomenclature of Diseases there can be no doubt. It would have constituted the Committee. The Committee nominated not perhaps be going too far to say that it was a distinct epoch is a very fair one, but it lacks the authority it would have had in medicine. It gave a foundation for medical men iu various if it had emanated jointly from tho two Colleges. The sur- countries to compare together their experiences. It went far gical portion of the work will certainly not be the least, also to banish certain sources of fallacy that are always apt; important, and it would have been much better for it to come to arise when a complex nomenclature is used. To a certain forth with the full of the of Sur- it as a stamped authority College small extent also acted record of our progress in medi- geons, than merely from some surgical nominees of the College cine and surgery. If, during the last century, at stated intervals, of Physicians. We think also the board is not sufficiently com- a series of works of this kind had been published, a perus?l prehensive in character. Ophthalmologists, aurists, dentists, of them would afford 110 small insight into how our fathers dermatologists should have been represented. The College and grandfathers reasoned about disease. Say what you will, of Physicians would, no doubt, meet this objection by saying:? there is a great deal in a name?many a word in use amongst ''Oil! we have selected some of our youngest Fellows who ns now bears on its front a whole history of the pathology are well known to be universal geniuses, so what can be the of our predecessors. use of the objectionable crowd of specialists?" But we think It appears that though only some seven or eight years have a work that is so representative of the British Medical Pro- elapsed since the Nomenclature of Diseases was published, fession should have every advantage that can be obtained by yet the copies of the work are nearly all exhausted, and the the special knowledge of every section of the profession. alternative lay with the College of Physicians of either re- Without this the work is not truly representative of the time printing the old one or publishing a new edition. The College in which we live, nor will it possess the authority it otherwise has very wisely, we think, decided on the latter, and has would have, the juvenile geniuses of the College of Physi- nominated a Committee for the purpose of preparing it. It cians notwithstanding. That the first edition suffered through may not be uninteresting to recall the names of those who sat not being thoroughly representative in it s board of authors, there on the Committee that drew up the first edition. Dr. Mayo, can be no doubt. Under the defects of sight in that edition Sir James Alderson, Drs. Hawkins, Jeaffreson, Pitman, Bence wo read:?Short sight; long sight; colour blindness ; he- Jones, Risdon Bennett, Munk, Babington, Addison, Nairne, meralopia; nyctalopia; astigmatism. Long sight is repre- Barker, Budd, Sir William Gull, Drs. Baly, Barclay, Sibson, sented in the French column by pretbytie, and in the Latin Parkes, Mr. Stanley, Dr. Druitt, Sir John Liddell, Sir Galbraith by visus longior, so the chances are that the College meant Logan, Sir Ranald Martin, Dr. Farr, Mr. Simon, Mr. Holmes, Presbyopia. But what about Ilypermetropia ? We are left Sir Thomas Watson, Mr. Luke, Dr. Bryson, Dr. Balfour, Dr. on the horns of dilemma, either the Committee did not know of Stark, Dr. Burke, Dr. Ma>kay, Mr. Moore, Drs. C. J. B. tho existence of this condition, or did not think it of sufficient Williams, Barlow, Arthur Farre, Black, F. Weber, Charles importance to mention it. Wc think our readers will agree, West, Chambers, Monro, George Johnson, Qtiain, Kirkes, which is the more probable. Wilkes, Bristowe, Henry Thompson, Herman Weber, Gueneau about synonyms, we hope the College will revise de Mussy, McWilliam, Mr. Gaskill, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Talking its Latin. It is too classical. No doubt Celsus is Tomes, Mr. Partridge, Drs. Birkett, Owen Rees, Handfield painfully the Latin medical classic, but surely in the present Btate Jones, Basliam, Herbert Uavies, Guy, Peacock, Wegg. This is use that Celsus never heard of. indeed a of science we terms long list, but when we remember that the book was may sentence from not a very Erasmus completed till twelve years after its commencement, a great Macaulay quotes apposite those who exclude useful terms from their vocabulary, deal of the delay being due to the reconstitution of the College against because are not Ciceronian. "Posthac non compelled by the Medical Act of 1858, it is no -ironder. On simply they nee in over a licebit patres reverendos, calce looking these names, it must be matter of regret that episcopos appellare a Christo id were literarum scribere annum nato, quod if the old Committee summoned again, how many a chair nusquam faciat Cicero. autem toto seculo then ably filled would now be vacant through death. Quid ineptius quam novato, locorum The College, however, has selected a sufficiently . small religione, imperiis, magistratibus, vocabulis, cedificiia, non aliter audere Committee this time; the names are:?The President Dr. cultu, moribus, loqui quam locutus est Cicero. Si reviviseeret Cicero, nderet hoc Peacock, Drs. Wilks, Bristowe, RadclifFe, Barclay, Bucknill and ipse Ciceronianorum The is no doubt in (< Barnes, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons or his genus. College right excluding bar- the barous, ill-formed, and unnecessarily coined but representative, Sir Joseph Fuyrer, Directors-General of the words;" thej have a little too far and or perhaps gone and, in some words Medical Department of the Army Navy their represent- excluding used in modern Latin, have had now and then to a atives, Dr. Farr, the Registrars-General of Scotland and Irelaud go very way round to express their or their representatives, Messrs. Simon, Holmes, and Hutchinson long meaning. and Galabin. Now it must, be The Committee and Drs. Balfour, Fagge, Payne, revising would be very greatly strengthened, " conceded that the College of Physicians created the Nomencla- if a representative of tho faculty of each of the great nations so were to be ture of Diseases," and the copyright to speak belongs to present. This would be very far preferable to asking thein. Iu other words, it is their own and they have the right a Frenchman and German and Italian to supply a list of to do what they like with it. And yet we think they would synonyms each in his own language. It would aid in establish- May 1, 1877.] THE ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT. 13^ ing an universal nomenclature. The best nomenclature will be wlien every medical man uses the same terms in the same sense. It would, therefore, ho well before fixing on any name to know what representatives of other nations have to say for or against the term. The Indian profession will, we are glad to say, be well represented bj> Sir Joseph Favrer, so they need have 110 misgivings. The work would be increased in value if here and there a definition were added, to show exactly the sense in which the term to which it is adjoined ought to be used. To use two terms to express one tiling is bad enough, but to use the same term in two different senses is likely to lead to infinitely greater confusion. There will have, we are sorry to see, to be added several new members to the eleven hundred and forty-six "ills that flesh is heir to." But our rejret will be lessened when we consider that these addenda are not really new conditions, but only those which though in existence previously had either not been recognized, or if recognized, had been included in a more or less similar disease. We sincerely hope that our old friend Beri-Beri will be decently interred and not again occupy a place in the Nomen- clature. It is now well known to be merely a state of anaemia and general dropsy, so commonly seen after severe malarial poisoning; that it occurs with special frequency in certain districts is of course to be expected ; but if a condition like this deserves a snecial name, why not have one for every sequela of every disease, and bring out the Nomenclature in ten " ?volumes ? Each new edition of Aitken's Science and Practice of Medicine" will, of course, still contain a long article 011 it with its ?wonderful remedy of the Treak Farook ; but the editor of that work, for he csn scarcely be called its author?unless a man is an author who copies down every tiling lie reads with as much power of selection, comprehension, and condensation, as there is in a manifold letter-writer, and then we take it that the editor of the London Post Office Directory is even a greater author than Dr. Aitken, a position we should not greatly care to dispute?we believe would hardly be quoted as an authority against the Nomenclature. Excluded from the Nomenclature this disease would soon die a natural death.

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