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If you love eponyms like Roman Mars loves eponyms, I'm afraid physician Isaac Siemens is here to deliver some bad news: medics are ditching them, in favour of terms that a) contain information about what the ailment actually is, and/or b) don't honour Nazi war criminals. Eponyms are controversial things.
MORE EPONYMFORMATION:
Dr Henry Heimlich, aged 96, saves a stranger's life with his eponymous manoeuvre.
Read about the many different people involved in researching Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome, and how the condition may have led to the deposal of King Otto of Greece.
...because there's a non-zero chance that it is.
Stigler's Law of Eponymy: no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer.
The transcript of this episode is at theallusionist.org/transcripts/name-that-disease.
Listen to Allusionist 21: Eponyms I - The Ballad of Bic and Biro.
RANDOMLY SELECTED WORD FROM THE DICTIONARY:
vibrissae
CREDITS:
Isaac Siemens is resident physician in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto. He says, "Eat your vegetables."
Roman Mars is the host of 99% Invisible.
Veronica Simmonds came up with the idea and helped produce this episode. She produces Sleepover for CBC Radio, and the radio show in which she braids hair, Braidio.
This episode was produced by me, Helen Zaltzman, with Devon Taylor. Thanks to Steve Cross and Ross MacFarlane. The music is by Martin Austwick.
