Fissured tongue

The terminology of tropical disease, particularly those ailments called parasitic, has frequently caused more confusion than illumination. Why not, for example, call those multicellular parasites worms [one syllable] rather than helminthes [three syllables], or flat worms [two syllables] rather than platyhelminthes [five syllables]? True, the scientific nomenclature derived from Greek and Latin is more often polysyllabic than is the vernacular, but it provides, nonetheless, an identifying vocabulary which is both consistent and readily accepted on every continent; and with but a rudimentary acquaintanceship with the Classical languages, these complex words often explain themselves.

The word, parasite, is from the Greek. The para- prefix means beside or next to; and the sitos root means food or eating. It is derived from an earlier Indo-European word meaning grain. A parasite, then, is a creature which cats next to its host, and frequently cats its host as well.

Helminthes is also a Greek word and means something which twists or rolls. The word, helix, a spiral line, is derived from the same Greek root. The more vernacular word, worm, is traced to an early German word meaning serpent or dragon. But it, too, comes from a Latin word, vermis, from which many English words are taken including vermin, vermiform, vermicelli [a pasta shaped like worms] and even vermilion, a scarlet dye taken originally from small wormlikc insects.

The word, nematode, [round worm] comes from a Greek root, nemato-, meaning thread; and the suffix, -ode, meaning like or similar to. It is akin to a cognate suffix, -oid, as in words such as sarcoid or carcinoid.

A nematode genus of major public health concern is schistosoma, a word taken from the Greek, schistos, meaning cleft, fissured or split; and soma, a Greek word meaning body as in words such as somatic. The first root appears in words such as schistoglossia [cleft tongue], schistorrhachis [spina bifida], schizophrenia [cleft or split mind] and even scissors.

The metazoan causing hookworm is Necator americanus. Necator in Latin means slayer and is derived from the Latin, necare, meaning to harm as in words such as noxious. This root, in turn is related to a Greek root, necro-, meaning death as in necrosis or necropsy.

Onchocerca, yet another nematodal infestation and a major cause of blindness, is derived from two Greek roots: onchos, meaning a bulk or a mass, as in the word oncology, the study of tumors; and -cerca, meaning tail as in the word, cercaria, the tailed worms.

The word, trematode [the flukes], is derived from a Greek word meaning a hole which bears a remote relationship to another Greek word meaning to shiver which has given rise to English words such as tremble, tremor and tremulo.

The word, platyhelminthes [the flat worms], comes from a Greek prefix, platys, meaning wide or broad, as in such words as platypus, the broad-footed duckbill, and platysma, the flat muscle of the neck.

STANLEY M. ARONSON, MD, MPH

- STANLEY M. ARONSON, MD, MPH

Copyright Rhode Island Medical Society Apr 2004
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