History of Medicine

As we come to accept that the great covid-19 pandemic which started off as an epidemic is slowly becoming  endemic , it's worth noting the new additions to our vocabulary. These words that were likely "all Greek to you" before 2020, are indeed just that -- they are all in fact derived from ancient Greek! The word  epidemic was in use since at least the time of Homer which is around 600 BCE, and is mentioned in the Odyssey to mean "who is back home" or "who is in his country." However, it was first introduced to medical jargon, along with its closely associated words pandemic and endemic , by the ancient Greek doctor, Hippocrates.    Hippocrates' treatise on Epidemics  Evolution of the term Epidemics. Credit: Paul Martin And not just these but several other words that we have come to associate with the current pandemic (as well as other diseases) were also coined by Hippocrates and his medical school such as: Cytokine Chronic Resolution Peak Acute