Customer Reviews

Medical Meanings: A Glossary of Word Origins, Second Edition

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Dr. Haubrich's glossary is a clearly a labor of love as well as expertly researched tome of medical meanings. For those interested in etymology, his book is as much as a therapeutic massage to the intellect as Barnette's book (Ladyfingers & Nun's Tummies) is a sensual, cerebral tweeking of the palate. I stumbled across an advertisement for the book in a medical journal. Having spent a few months researching medical word origins, I gave up after reading this delightful book. It has no past (or future) competition. The advertisment was meant for physicians, but I believe that a much wider audience might well enjoy his meticulous research and muted humor. I enjoyed his mini-essay on the origin of the "Western blot", the tables explaining number and color origins, his whimsical asides on otherwise obscure (and pretentious) medical terminologies. I paid full price, and I would advocate for an amazon.com discount, as well as a pairing of the book with other more popular books on word origins. I would hope that the author plans a sequel, paperback edition and/or periodic updates to this delicious "word salad" of medical etymology! If William Safire uses this book for his column, he must give Dr. Haubrich proper attribution. He deserves it.

I initially saw this product on google books when I got curious about why there is both an ileum and an ilium in the human body. As soon as I perused a few pages of it on there, I decided it was a book well worth having! As a medical student, I have had to learn a lot of unfamiliar terms in a very short period of time and I find knowing the origins really helps remember what is what; in particular, it made anatomy a lot easier. This book is the perfect balance between very informative and very readable, with occasional light humour. I would recommend it highly to any medical student or indeed anyone who is just curious as you can happily dip in and out of it, learning something really interesting on almost every page.

I am one of those people that learns and recalls better if I know the where the word came from and why it is called the way it is called. If you are one of those people, I highly recommend this book. It makes the medical world make a lot more sense.

Dr Haubrich's book is great! I own the hardcover first edition, and have found it quite useful. There are other older books on medical etymology (usually gathering dust in the stacks of medical libraries) that are much more detailed and have more information, but Dr Haubrich's is the most readable. Sometimes I just pick up this book and browse (can't do that with the other books!). All in all, I would highly recommend this book to everyone interested in this subject.

I purchased this because I'm an etymology buff and I'm taking gross anatomy in medical school. The only complaint I have is that there are some terms (for the less significant structures) that are not included. But it's very helpful and very entertaining on occasion. Thank you, Dr. Haubrich.