This book is an "anatomy" in the sense that most words used in Medical Terminology can be "cut up" into their component Latin and Greek roots, the most important of which are presented here. It is "formulaic" in the sense that consistent ways of translating compounds made from those roots are given. Finally, it is a "workbook" in that the items to be learned are well represented in exercises.
It will be most efficiently used in conjunction with a teacher who can discuss etymological and other aspects of the combining forms and so make them easier to learn, and who can elucidate difficult points as they arise. Nevertheless, it can also be used for self-study as the exercises have answer keys. Access to a good etymological dictionary of English and to one of the standard medical dictionaries is recommended for those who choose to study this material independently.
This book has grown out of class-room experience, throughout the last
ten years of which students have responded eagerly to my invitations to
tell me from a medical point of view what is wrong and what is right, and
from a pedagogical one, what is effective and what is not. My interest
in the subject began when, during several years of marking weekly quizzes
given in the Medical Terminology course offered by the Department of Classics
at the University of British
Columbia, I came to understand both the difficulties inherent in the
subject itself and the shortcomings of one of the better available textbooks.
Early versions of the material presented here were then offered as a new
textbook in two classes to which I taught the same course at the University
of British Columbia in 1982 and 1983, and to one non-credit class of medical
students at the University of Saskatchewan in 1986. The textbook was extensively
revised during and
after each of these experiments and was used in substantially the same
form each year from 1986 to 1992 in a course taught by myself and offered
by the Department of Classics at the University of Saskatchewan. Following
its use in 1992 in a class of some six hundred students, whose enthusiastic
response to my invitation to point out errors was both overwhelming and
humbling, it was extensively revised once again, and Chapter 17 was added.
In 1993 I wrote the last three chapters, and revised the whole once more.
The extent to which the first seventeen chapters at least are now reasonably
free of errors is therefore a measure of the gratitude I here express to
all the students who have contributed to its evolution over the past decade;
space forbids the use of names, but I wish also to thank Wendy Wobeser,
Odrun Stiles, Jeanne Marken, Marlene Van Burgsteden and Roberta Gerwing.
In spite of everyone's best efforts, however, some errors and inconsistencies
will remain; these are of course entirely my own responsibility.