Eponymous Medical Syndromes
Medical eponyms are terms used in medicine which are named after people. Eponymns are so-called because they take their names from their chief protagonists (either doctors or patients, but occasionally places or things). They are our sole route to an exotic variety of obscure fame: "if one was a drunkard and one's name was Johnny Walker one could form a society called
Alcoholics Eponymous."
BROWSE THROUGH EPONYMOUS SYNDROMES
Monochromatic doctors may try to abolish eponyms seeking to replace them with histologically driven disease titles. But classifications vary as more becomes known, so renaming of non-eponyms becomes essential. Eponyms carry on forever, because they imply nothing about causes. We like eponyms - and, where possible, the use of the term
syndrome rather than
disease. A syndrome is a collection of phenomena and is neutral on whether the collection is a disease. To tell someone with Gilles de La Tourette's syndrome that they have a disease is a slap in the face-when the condition is bound up by who they are ("I tic therefore I am"). Syndromes can sound dire to patients, or falsely glamorous.
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