Latin as the language of medical terminology:some remarks on its role and prospectsElena Mareckováa, Frantisek Simonb, Ladislav Cervenya

a Department of Languages, Faculty of Medicine, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republicb Department of Languages, Safárik University, Kosice, Slovak Republic

The branches of science in which Latin hastraditionally found its application involve indis-putably medicine. While until the close of theMiddle Ages a medical text not written in Latin wasa rare exception, modern languages began to gainground with increasing intensity from the 16thcentury on. Although in France there even was acourt case held against a certain doctor named Ri-vière, in which he was accused of not being actuallyable to be a doctor because he did not have a goodcommand of Latin [1], it was in France that Latinfirst started retreating from medicine (cf. [2]), fol-lowed by Italy and later England. On the otherhand, in Germany and in the central Europeanarea Latin survived even in teaching until as late asthe 19th century [3]. The doctors themselves wereexpressing dissatisfaction with this state of affairs;e.g. the well-known German doctor L. Schönleinmentioned in one of his letters in 1839 that usingLatin in clinical instruction was a considerable im-pediment. In the natural sciences, which greatlyinfluence medicine, so many new terms have de-veloped that seeking Latin words for them wouldbe in his opinion a waste of time. What remains iseither sacrifice new discoveries to the genius of theancient world or violate the language [4]. The re-

sult of these considerations was that in 1840 L.Schönlein decided to deliver his inaugural lecturefor the Berlin Clinic in German. Similarly, the re-puted Viennese clinician J. Skoda regarded Latinto be a burden. However, in 1846 he was forced totranslate his inaugural lecture into Latin at the lastmoment [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 centurythis 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 permanentposition in the key component of the language ofmedicine terminology.

Despite the obvious retreat of Latin from themedical 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 followsfrom the advantages that have been generallyknown: terminological continuity, on the one hand

The present paper offers an up-to-date view ofthe 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 sofar manage without its knowledge. In this sense aprimary rank is occupied by anatomical nomen-clature whose international version remains Latinin the full extent. A more varied picture is pre-sented by the clinical disciplines where, apart fromLatin terms, expressions of ancient provenancehave been applied in a large measure in the formof ethnic languages. At the same time, particularlyin view of the needs of computerisation, repeatedattempts 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 thetime being, remained a functioning means of in-ternational communication, guaranteed by theEuropean Pharmacopoeia (1996) and by the cor-pus of International Non-proprietary Names(1992, 1996), even though in the future an everstronger competition of national languages shouldbe taken into account.

Key words: Latin; language of medicine; anatomicalnomenclature; clinical terminology; pharmaceuticalLatin

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Peer reviewed article

Summary

Introduction

No financialsupport to declare.

as regards space (it is a worldwide, universal ter-minology, not bound to any nation), and on theother hand as regards history (terms have beenused in a more or less unchanged form for over2000 years). Apart from this, Latin and Greek con-stitute a unique stock which may also be drawnupon in case of the need of creating a new term.The incomprehensibility of the two languages forthe patient is a specific moment of preference, asit is not always in his or her interest to understandthe utterances of physicians. Thus the doctorspeaks an incomprehensible language and,through a reversed logical process, the impressionmay arise that if somebody uses an incomprehen-sible terminology, she or he is a good doctor. Wemight designate this phenomenon as the mysteryof the foreign-language medical communication at the doctor versus patient or professional ver-sus layman level. This was already discovered byPliny the Elder (Naturalis historia 29,8,17), whoclaimed, when speaking about ancient Romanswho did not know Greek, that such people “minuscredunt, 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 nonintellegunt” (People trust more what they do notunderstand). However, with the decreasing knowl-edge of Latin in the new generation of doctorsthere is the menace of the risk referred to by a cer-tain Slovakian professor at the faculty of medicinewho complained that as he spoke Latin while at thepatient’s bedside so that the patient might not un-derstand, the medical students did not understandeither.

Furthermore, it should be noted that in the lastcentury there appeared a new phenomenon whichwas menacing the special terminological functionof Latin in modern medicine – the English lan-guage. There exist contradictory views of its statusand perspectives. These range from H. Lippert’sassertion [8] according to which English has takenover the role of Latin in medicine, to the opinionof the well-known German historian of medicineH. Schipperges [6], who states that Latin withGreek “have masterfully outlived” not only theArab influence in the Middle Ages, but also the

fierce onset of English in the 20th century. Basedon this experience he infers that in the future thecontemporary English pressure will only appear asa historical interlude. We are rather inclined to ac-cept this conclusion because, besides other things,English medical terminology is predominantlyLatin or Latinate.

When taking a cursory glance at the Englishanatomical nomenclature, one is likely to note thatthere is Latin present not only in the nominativeplural of some of the nouns, e.g.: fascia – fasciae, sul-cus – sulci, but that there also occur nominativeplurals of some adjectives, e.g.: chordae tendineae,foramina nervosa, rami communicantes. Further-more, one will also find nouns in genitive singularand genitive plural, e.g.: orbicularis oculi/oris, cristagalli, levator anguli oris, vasa vasorum, quadratuslumborum, graded forms of Latin adjectives, e.g.:scalenus minimus, latissimus dorsi, levator palpebraesuperioris, longissimus capitis, and even purely Latinmultiple-word terms, e.g.: flexor digiti minimi bre-vis, levator labii alaeque nasi. When Latin forms areborrowed, no system is observed in the Englishnomenclature. We have registered numerous in-stances of pairs in which the English version of theterm or of its component is applied at one time,and the Latin version at another time, e.g.: arteriathyroidea ima – deepest layer of subcutaneous tissue,foramen magnum – mental foramen, major/minorsalivary glands – greater/lesser vestibular glands. (Theexamples used are given in Terminologia Anatom-ica [9].)

A similar situation is faced in clinical termi-nology. Some terms of Graeco-Latin origin arepresented in an English variation, i.e. mainly withAnglicised suffixes, e.g.: peptic ulcer, thromboembolicpulmonary hypertension, acute viral gastroenteropathy,congenital omental cyst. Others are used by the Eng-lish professional terminology in their originalLatin wordings (naturally with an English pro-nunciation), e.g.: salpingitis, nephrolithiasis, colitiscystica profunda/superficialis, pseudomyxoma peritonei,tinea unguium/manuum/pedum/capitis (examplestaken from the International Nomenclature ofDiseases [10]). Therefore, it is debatable whetherthe English medical terminology can at all be rea-sonably mastered without the knowledge of basicLatin.

Latin as the language of medical terminology 582

Anatomical nomenclature

The following part of our paper will focus, ina brief survey, on the three most important cor-puses of terminology and on the role which Latinplays in them at present. The first place has to bereserved for the language of anatomy, where it hasgained the firmest position. All of the anatomicalnomenclatures produced so far have used Latin astheir 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 AnatomischeGesellschaft 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 renderedcommunication impossible, and thus it menaced atthe same time scientific research and the study ofmedicine. The Basiliensia nomina anatomica (BNA,1895) were then, apart from the original disunitedterminology, being used in anatomical institutions

and in professional publications until the year 1935when, in Jena, it was again German specialists whoadopted another project of their own, differing inmany factual and linguistic aspects from the pre-ceding project. The time of the origin of theI(J)enaiensia nomina anatomica (I(J)NA, 1935),falling within the era of fascism, probably fore-shadowed the adverse fate of this codification. Atthe 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 takingpart in the preparatory work in the form of con-sultations [11]. After the Second World War thiscorpus was rejected at a suggestion put forward byAmerican and Canadian anatomists, and a decisionwas drawn to come back to the Basle names, whichwere subjected to a conservative and thus onlyminimal revision. The subsequent efforts, co-or-dinated since 1950 by the newly established Inter-national Anatomical Nomenclature Committee –IANC, resulted in a third standardisation calledParisiensia nomina anatomica, according to thevenue 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 editionsworked out within the competence of the above-mentioned committee. Its principal intention wasto reflect the current requirements, primarily tointroduce new terms for new concepts and to elim-inate any shortcomings found both on the factualand linguistic levels. Due to serious objections re-lating to organisation and to persistent technicaldisputes between the International Federation ofAnatomical Associations (IFAA) and the nomen-clature committee, which culminated with thepublication of the sixth edition in 1989 in a formshowing little respect for the comments of a partof the IFAA members, a further committee was es-tablished under the auspices of the Federation(Federative Committee on Anatomical Terminol-ogy – FCAT). It was charged with elaborating “theofficial terminology of the anatomical sciences”[12], based on consultations with all the anatomi-cal societies and emphasising the principle ofdemocracy in this collaboration. The key tasks in-

volved the naming of new structures, the intro-duction of different terms and those so far used byclinicians only. In addition, a request was presentedthat the future versions should meet the demandsof 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 ofterms. This is in obvious contradiction to all thepreceding 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 editionof NA, published in 1983, as its starting point.They at first prepared a working version, whichthey offered for a wide international evaluationwhose numerous suggestions were incorporated inthe final version. Then, in 1998, a new corpus ofanatomical terms was published, called Terminolo-gia Anatomica [9]. It is worth mentioning that theFCAT confirmed Latin expressis verbis as the lan-guage of “definitive terminology”. This had previ-ously happened only once, at the 8th InternationalCongress of Anatomists in Wiesbaden (1965). Inhis article presenting the new nomenclature to theexpert public, I. Whitmore [12], chairman of theFCAT, considers it necessary to explain the reasonsfor such decision to possible sceptics. He pointsout 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 worldand professional layers. This means that, out of thenumber of advantages that classical languagesoffer, it is constancy, international character, andneutrality (unlike national languages) that are ac-centuated. The professional benefit of the newcorpus of nomenclature was assessed favourably byJ. Drukker [13]. In conclusion of this section wewould like to remark that all the editions of Nom-ina anatomica, including the latest, bear evidenceof non-participation of Latinists in their revision,which unnecessarily decreases the linguistic levelof the text (cf. [14]).

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Terminology of clinical medicine

A substantially more complicated and lessconsistent image is provided by the terminologyof the clinical disciplines. It is comprehensiblebecause, first, its range is much larger (up to 60thousand terms according to some estimates) and,second, there is a difference between the descrip-tive disciplines such as anatomy and histology onthe one hand, and clinical medicine, which un-dergoes far more serious upheavals, on the other.The causes of some diseases have namely beenunknown as yet, and there even appear new dis-eases whose names are later subject to the devel-

opment of opinions on their origin, therapy, andthe like.

Clinical terms as well as terms relating topathological anatomy may be encountered in med-ical literature, in the doctor’s current practice whenwriting out case records, in diagnoses relating topathological anatomy, and in normative hand-books of medical terminology. As far as the use ofterms in the literature is concerned, apart fromsome 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-guage forms, e.g. (Czech / Slovak) gastritida / gas-tritída, hysterektomie / hysterektómia, hematom /hematóm, encefalopatie / encefalopatia, premedikace /premedikácia. However, this does not hold ab-solutely, because there also exist publicationswhich use Latin consistently, and sometimes evenin a form surprising for the present day. For ex-ample, in the Slovakian Vademecum medici [15]there occur constructions such as hyperkinesis in-voluntaris de origine extrapyramidali, morbus ex irra-diatione, paralysis nervi facialis peripherica, and alsoAIDS in the Latin form syndroma immunodeficien-tiae acquisitae. The Czech text [16] does not avoidLatin either, although domesticated terms prevail,e.g.: pseudoappendicitis (p. 94), acanthosis nigricansmaligna (p. 512), erythema exsudativum multiforme(p. 512), lichen ruber planus (p. 513), mastopathiachronica cystica (p. 357).

When writing case records, doctors in ourcentral European geographical area have still beenprioritising Latin terms, even though they some-times deliberately facilitate their situation by pro-fusely using abbreviations or circumventingoblique cases. For example, instead of status postbronchitidem they write: bronchitis, status post. It istrue that abbreviations do accelerate work, but atthe same time they cause the complete and correctwordings gradually to disappear from knowledgeso that quite a number of doctors have no longeran active command of them.

From a linguistic point of view the most diffi-cult task is represented by diagnoses relating topathological anatomy where it is often necessary toform long phrases consisting of many words in var-ious grammatical cases, e.g.: Metastases neoplasma-tis maligni ad nodos lymphaticos bronchiales, tracheo-bronchiales dx., sin., paratracheales, mediastinales ant.et cervicales profundos inf. l. dx. et ad corpus vertebraethoracicae IV et XII; Decubitus reg. sacralis et glutaeaelat. sin., calcanearis lat. utque, partis lateralis dorsipedis sin., reg. trochantericae lat. dx. et reg. femorispost. lat. sin. et patellae lat. dx. It is no wonder thathere too Latin sometimes happens to be aban-doned, being replaced with terms of Graeco-Latinorigin but in the national language form. As can beseen, these texts like previous ones abound in ab-breviations.

Within the scope of lexical handbooks, medi-cine has had at its disposal for quite a long timeonly the statistical classification of diseases issuedby the World Health Organisation (WHO) in anew revision every ten years; this, however, is nota real terminological instruction but serves just sta-tistical purposes. The chaotic situation in clinicalterminology has recently instigated several at-tempts at its standardisation, which mainly react tothe current demands of computerisation. Theprojects SNOMED [17, 18] and GALEN [19]have been well known. In 1979 the American edi-tion of SNOMED (Systematized Nomenclatureof Medicine) was issued. It is not based on oneinitial language (e.g. on Latin), but the individual

languages are supposed to elaborate their own ver-sions (e.g. the German version appeared in 1984[20]). For the SNOMED authors there is no prob-lem about Latin; the introduction lacks even theslightest mention of its role in medicine, althoughthe traditional Graeco-Latin terms are usedthroughout the text, of course besides frequentAnglo-Americanisms (SNOMED, 1984). The taskof the GALEN project (Generalised Architecturefor Languages, Encyclopaedias and Nomencla-tures in Medicine), realised in the years 1992 to1995, was to make “a semantically valid model ofclinical terminology, represented in a formal lan-guage, and associated with sophisticated supportfor different natural languages and conversion be-tween different coding schemes” (www.cs.man.uk/mig/galen). It was followed up by another projectcalled GALEN-IN-USE [21], realised in the years1995 to 1999 in co-operation with the EuropeanFederation of Classification Centres. Let us addthat both WHO and CIOMS (Council for Inter-national Organizations of Medical Sciences) alsocame with the initiative to elaborate an interna-tionally unified and recognised terminology de-signed for global use. Between the years 1979 and1992, seven volumes of IND (InternationalNomenclature of Diseases [10]) appeared, whichprovided both the recommended names furnishedwith definitions and the rejected synonymous ex-pressions for infectious and parasitic diseases, aswell as diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal,cardiovascular and genitourinary systems, and dis-orders of metabolism, nutrition, and glands withendocrine secretion. The purpose of these cor-puses is to supplement the international statisticalclassification of diseases with a standardised list.The nomenclature presented is compiled in asomewhat peculiar English, which often vaguelyrecalls Paracelsian individual combination of Ger-man and Latin. It is in fact a special linguistic con-struct, which is well described by the term “linguaanglatina” or “Englatin”, inspired by the expres-sion “Czenglish” for English affected by Czech[22]. For example: oesophageal web due to dyskerato-sis congenita syndrome, adenocarcinoma of the appen-dix, acute/chronic cor pulmonale, agenesis of the ductusdeferens, congenital stenosis of the urinary meatus,leiomyoma of the cervix uteri. The obligatoriness ofthis nomenclature is debatable and many doctorsdo not even seem to have taken notice of it. Ac-cording to information from the CIOMS secre-tariat the work on this extensive project has beeninterrupted for economic reasons.

On the other hand, we have a fresh experiencefrom the Czech Republic. For the needs of theFaculty Hospital in Brno, a computer programmewas developed named PFANNENSTIEL (1998),whose initiators had decided in favour of the Latinnames of diseases, injuries, and even medical pro-cedures. Based on this material one can convinceoneself that Latin commands plenty of means ofexpression suitable for communication of both sci-entific and factual information in contemporary

Latin as the language of medical terminology 584

medicine. For example: endoresectio endometrii perhysteroscopiam, microabrasio cavi uteri, partus nonprogrediens, pseudohermaphroditismus masculinus /femininus, fixatio gypsea membri inferioris completa,

myringoplastica per prothesim, resectio vesicae urinar-iae cum reimplantatione ureteris, nephrectomia bilat-eralis donoris mortui, asphyxia livida intra partum.

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Pharmaceutical Latin

A third area where Latin has been traditionallypreserved is represented by pharmaceutical andpharmacological terminology. For prescribingmedicaments, some of the countries have to dateavailed themselves of what is called prescription-related Latin, which in full measure respects theoriginal linguistic usage. In order to master thissignificant part of his professional activity on therequired level, a doctor has, among other things,to acquire the specific lexicon as well as a model ofthe grammatical structure of the prescription-re-lated text, particularly the relationships betweenthe address (Invocatio) and the structural compo-nents of the proper prescription (Praescriptio).The names of the individual remedies have theform of a genitive with an attributive partitivefunction, and the expressions superior to them andindicating the dose data (given in grams as a rule)are placed in the objective accusative supplement-ing the imperative form “recipe”. The terminol-ogy of subscription and/or signature, which con-tains instructions on the preparation, form and wayof dispensation of the drug, and/or other instruc-tions destined for the chemist, remains unchangedin the long term; e.g.: Misce fiat solutio modo asep-tico, Da cum formula, Adde guttatorium sterile in cap-sula, Divide in doses aequales No V (quinque), Ster-ilisetur, Ne repetatur, Ad usum medici, Sub signo ve-neni, and the like. On the other hand, the officialnames of the drugs and adjuvant substances, med-ical preparations and health care means, i.e. ofcomponents which are usually set as normative inthe pharmacopoeias, have undergone markedchanges during the last decade. In the Czech Re-public, the Czech Pharmacopoeia of 1997 [23] andthe Addendum of 1999 [24] are currently in valid-ity; in compiling them, a harmonisation of theircontents with the European Pharmacopoeia [25]as an internationally recognised European stan-dard was undertaken for the first time. In the caseof medicines, this has led to a transition from thetraditional Latin names currently used in centralEuropean pharmacopoeias to an internationalnomenclature which, though being also Latin, dif-fers quite essentially from the original one in for-mally grammatical and lexical aspects. It takes asthe starting point international unprotected names(International non-proprietary names /INN/ [26])with Latin as the base wording, which is supple-mented with an English, French, Russian, Span-

ish, or also German version. In the case of namesdenoting binary compounds and salts or esters,which had traditionally been formed by a nominalphrase with an attributive adjective, there occurstransformation of the adjectives to nouns, and theoriginally dominating substantive element getsinto the position of an appositional adjunct withexplicative meaning, e.g.: calcium oxydatum → calciioxidum, ammonium chloratum → ammonii chlo-ridum, natrium salicylicum → natrii salicylas, kaliumnitricum → kalii nitras, natrium nitrosum → natriinitris. Obviously by analogy, a change has been un-dertaken in the word order of the pharmacopoeialnames of plant drugs, which are also realised bymeans of noun phrases with appositional genitivaladjuncts, e.g.: Uvae ursi folium, Valerianae radix,Anisi stellati fructus, Lini semen, Calendulae flos,Quercus cortex, Acaciae gummi, Melissae herba. Theformally identically constructed names of theother drugs and preparations have also been mod-ified, e.g.: Sesami oleum, Belladonnae folii extractumsiccum normatum, Citri etheroleum, Glyceroli suppos-itorium, Iodi solutio aquosa, Natrii iodidi solutio, Anisispiritus compositus, Zinci oxidi unguentum, Acidi boriciaqua ophthalmica. Thus, for the first time in termi-nology, there appears anteposition of an apposi-tional substantival adjunct instead of the currentpostposition. However, the word-order adjust-ment is not carried out consistently and, not infre-quently, the original ordering is preserved, e.g.:Spiritus saponis kalini (but Camphorae spiritus), Lanacellulosi regenerati (but Cellulosi pulvis), Praeparatainsulini iniectabilia (but Insulini solubilis iniectio),Adeps lanae, Alcoholes adipis lanae (but Alcoholiscetylici cremor). All the above-mentioned modifica-tions bear traces of a transitory period and causeconsiderable difficulties in introducing them intoprofessional and especially teaching practice. Eventhough national languages have been favoured indispensing prescriptions in some of the countriesof the European Union, in the central Europeanarea Latin has continued to be preferred and thestandard international nomenclature of drugs andauxiliary substances has generally been based onthe Latin version. The Latin version of the phar-macopoeia has, among other countries, been usedin Germany, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, the coun-tries of the former Soviet Union and, which is es-pecially remarkable, also in Japan and China.

Phraseological expressions with medical con-tent may be conceived as a separate group. Theyrepresent quantitatively no large but, from thepoint of view of their practical utilisation, a non-negligible and at the same time inseparable part ofthe technical language. In a formal respect theyare, as a rule, composed of noun phrases of whichat least one element is restricted as to meaning andfunction exactly to the corresponding collocation.They have continued to remain a living compo-nent of the communication outfit of a modern doc-tor. Their popularity consists, besides the respectfor tradition, in the ability to express economicallyand succinctly, like terms, often complicated fac-tual contents, which in the national languagesmostly correspond to multiple periphrastic ex-pressions. For example: facies Hippocratica (hippo-

cratic face; a face showing the critical state of a dis-ease, the expression of a patient’s face beforedeath), signum mali ominis (a sign of ill omen, un-favourable sign as regards prognosis), vitium artis(defect in /medical/ art, designation of the subjectof a doctor’s criminal and civil liability), excisio pro-batoria (tentative excision of a morbid focus for thepurpose of histological examination), circulus vitio-sus (vicious circle, designation for simultaneous oc-currence of morbid processes affecting each otherunfavourably), experimentum crucis (crucial experi-ment, a decisive test supposed to show which ofseveral hypotheses is correct), (prognosis) quoadvitam (a forecast so far as life is concerned, i.e.,preservation of life, or of the quality of life), inter-valla lucida (lucid intervals, clear moments, briefreturns to consciousness).

Latin as the language of medical terminology 586

Phraseological collocations in medical Latin

Conclusion

As follows from the preceding exposition,Latin has been so deep-rooted in medical termi-nology and thus also in medicine, and at the sametime constantly so productive that its presence init appears as a natural matter of course (thoughthere do exist certain geographical variations in theindividual areas). This fact is still noticed in earlierpublications (cf. [27]), while in many of the morerecent ones it is only, as if implicitly, presupposedbut silently avoided (cf., e.g., [28] and [29]). In anycase, it can be confirmed that in the course of a de-velopment lasting more than two millenniums, anextraordinarily influential and viable tradition hasbeen established, such as hardly any other com-petitive substitute may fully withstand. Thus anypossible doubts about further functioning of Latinin medicine may be regarded as unsubstantiated.In this sense let us add here a hitherto topical Neo-Latin adage “Invia est in medicina via sine linguaLatina” (The way without Latin is impassable inmedicine), which poignantly reflects the situationas characterised in the present article. This also ac-counts for the need and legitimacy of teachingLatin terminology at medical faculties (cf. [30]),whose purpose is primarily to provide students andfuture clinicians with a functional instruction on

precise and linguistically correct usage of the ter-minological apparatus. One can well speculatethat, on the one hand, it is a lucky solution for Latinin medicine to have its “continuation” in the Eng-lish medical terminology because it so maintainsits unique standing and, on the other hand, for theEnglish medical terminology its Latin origin is anadvantage because in that way its spread is accel-erated and facilitated. Finally, in an effort to offera more comprehensive view, let us recall the apho-ristic expression of the already quoted German his-torian Schipperges [5], in which the problem ofLatin in medicine, and/or that of Latin versus Eng-lish, is made relative using the experience of an en-lightened expert: “The old doctor spoke Latin, thenew doctor speaks English, the good doctor speaksto the patient.”

Correspondence:PhDr. Elena Marecková, CSc.Department of Languages, Medical FacultyMasaryk University in BrnoKomenského nám. 2CZ-662 43 BrnoE-Mail: emarec@med.muni.cz

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