• Question: Why are dieases given a name like cancer, fever etc. Who came up with the names and why??

    Asked by eviej26 to Amy, Drew, Julia, Kimberley, Sara on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Drew Rae

      Drew Rae answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Often the first person to discover a disease names it. Other times they give it a very technical name, but then someone else names it after the person who discovered it.

      Cancer and fever are very old names. Fever comes from the Roman Goddess who was thought to cause fever. Cancer comes from the same word for Crab as the starsign Cancer. The ancient greek doctor who first studied it thought that a tumor looked like the shell of a crab.

    • Photo: Julia Griffen

      Julia Griffen answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Not sure tbh!

    • Photo: Amy MacQueen

      Amy MacQueen answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Hey evie!

      It usually depends on who discovers it, what the characteristics of the disease are, what causes it etc.
      Some of the names are very old and some of them come from other languages so in english they sound a little weird!!

    • Photo: Sara Imari Walker

      Sara Imari Walker answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Hi evie! This is also my impression – in medicine typically the discoverer gets to name the disease. And, sometimes they are named for case studies of a person suffering from the illness, for example lou gehrig’s disease was called such for a long time before being renamed ALS. The rename was probably by an international medical society that oversees disease names and thought something more descriptive would be appropriate. In astronomy for example, there is strict regulation on what names planetary bodies get – this naming is regulated by the International Astronomical Union. Medicine is not my field but I am sure they have an organization that fills an analogous role.

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