Session 5

This session pertains to four sections :

1. Doctors for women -

a. Gynaecologist derives from gyne(woman) and logos(science). So gynaecology refers to science of women.
b. Obstetrician refers to midwife(obstetrix in latin).. many of you would remember this by the umpteen bollywood movies where there is invariably no doctor to aid in the delivery of the child and hence the use of midwives.

NL informs us that the suffix -ician as in physician, musician means expert.

2. Children -

a. Paediatrician derives from paidos(child), iatreia(healing) and ician(expert) and hence logically refers to a medical expert who heals children of their maladies.

b. Pedagogy is built upon paidos(child) and agogos(leader) and thus means the leading of a child. where? to growth, to maturity, to development. Since children are from birth led into the society to become a part of the culture by adults, hence pedagogy also pertains to the methods of teaching. for instance, IIMA has a case study pedagogy where this year they'll be studying Harshal Mehra as a specimen who has invaded their holy precincts.

Demagogue - demos(people) + agogos(leader). The term has now come to mean a leader who uses fiery speeches and wild oratory in an attempt to be elected to office and as a result, demagogue has a negative connotation attached to it. Almost all of our political "leaders" thus can be safely termed as demagogues.

3. Skin -

Derma means skin and hence dermatology refers to the branch of medicine that is concerned with the physiology and pathology of the skin. Here NL makes us aware of the fact that all words in the English language containing Derma refer to skin in some way or the other. Like hypodermic needles penetrate under(hypos) the skin, a pachyderm is an animal with an unusually thick(pachy) skin.. blah blah blah

4. Eyes -

Ophthalmologist builds upon ophthalmos(eye) plus logos(science) and hence refers to a physician who specializes in ophthalmology. You would also have heard the term oculist. This is another title used in earlier times for ophthalmologist, building upon oculus (latin for eye) and the basis on which many English words were made:

a. Ocular- adjective pertaining to eye.

b. Monocle- lens for one(monos) eye. Many of us have seen monocles being sported by characters in British movies based in the Victorian era, can't recall an example right now.

c. Binoculars- Do I need to explain this..

d. This is interesting. Inoculate, as most of us would be aware, means to introduce a serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into (the body of a person or animal), especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease. What i didn't know was that there was a single 'n' in the word and not two as is commonly perceived. Care must be taken to ensure that we dont put ophthalmologist( a medical specialist) in the same category as optometrist and optician.

An optometrist(opsis: sight or vision + metron: measurement) is not a doctor, he/she merely measures vision, prescribes, fits glasses and the stuff but performs no medical tasks.

Opticians(opsis + ician: expert) are of two types. Ophthalmic opticians are the same as optometrists. The second type of opticians make or dispense glasses and contact lenses working upon the optometrist's prescription according to specifications of the patient's lenses.


Trivia - After going through this session in the book, I thought Norman Lewis would have some relation to some mathematician as he breaks every word into its logical roots with mathematical precision. Alas, I could find no ancestors of his with a mathematical bent of mind as far as wikipedia was concerned. But I found that NL served in WW2 and he was famous for his travel writings. Such is serendipity. To read more about NL, you can access the following link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Lewis