Greek or Latin Roots--Noso- and Noce/Nocu

Nosos is the Greek word for disease. It has bequeathed to English a number of words relating to the study, treament and writing about diseases. A book dealing with diseases or a classification of diseases is a nosology. As befitted the use of Linnaean terminology in the 1770s, a 1778 author defined a "Medical Nosology" as "an arrangement of diseases according to their genera and species." That is, there are diseases of the arteries, veins, glands, etc. A nosologist studies diseases, though an alternative name for such a person is the rare nosomathete. Don't confuse anything in nosomathete with athletics; the second part is derived from the Greek word for "disciple," --mathetes. A disciple (mathetes) learns (Greek is manthano). Therefore mathetic activity or mathesis relates to knowledge or the process of learning. Though a mathlete is defined as a "person who takes part in a mathematics competition" (word originated in 1980), I would like to see a mathlete as one striving for knowledge mastery. Though the word nosology emphasizes the classification of diseases, nosography is a systematic description of them.

Nosognomonic relates to the diagnosis of diseases. This word, however, is so little-used that it encourages us to pause to figure out what it really might mean. A gnomon in Greek is a judge or interpreter. Thus, something nosognomonic interprets a disease. It is what you might call a feature of the disease that leads to correct diagnosis of it. It indicates or points to the disease itself. A cough might be nosognomonic, as a swelling or tumor might be. Another rare word with the noso root is nosotrophy (no SOT ro fee; we also have nosotrophous). It is a curious and confusing word. The OED, which calls it "rare," says that it is the "promotion" of disease. Indeed the word trophos in Greek means "nourishment." Thus, it would seem to be a word to emphasize the worsening of a disease, such as in the sentence that smoking is nosotrophous of of cancer. Yet, many online definitions render is as the "cure" or "care" of a disease. I am not going to the mat on this one...

Finally, nosocomial relates to a hospital or, specifically, a disease originating or acquired in a hospital. Scholarly journals speak about nosocomial infections or nosocomial infections. A nosocome is a rare word for hospital. Make sure you don't say nosocomical; it wouldn't be funny. Nosophobia, a word that made it into English in 1889, is a fear of having a disease. Nosophobia has had an interesting recent development as some writers suggest that it, rather than hypochondriasis, is really the "medical student's disease." This disease is a condition in which the student doctor fears that s/he is in danger of contracting the disease s/he is studying. You can imagine the situation. A patient has a soreness in the stomach. It is very tender. Doctor applies small pressure to the spot. Patient winces. Patient dies the next week from complications of the stomach disease. Doctor student begins to feel as if she has the same tender spots in the stomach. Maybe, too, she will die before earning the degree. Well, let's stop this right here before we get carried away.

Noce/Nocu

If nosos has to do with disease, nocere, the Latin verb for "to harm" has do do with harm in a general sense. Let's begin, however, with the Latin word for harmful: nocuus. It came into English, first in 1627, as nocuous: "Tobacco alwayes hurtfull & nocuous to ye Liver." One might have a "nocuous" type of grass or the "nocuous" potency of a medicine. A lawyer might talk about a "nocuous" law. The word has been swallowed up by noxious (derived from noxa--harm; noxius--harmful), which is defined as "harmful, poisonous, injurious..." But nocuous got the final revenge by being negatived in the common English word innocuous, which means "not hurtful or injurious."

The same thing happened with the word nocent, which came into our language at first in the 15th century to denote a guilty person or criminal, but soon took on the adjectival meaning of "guilty" or "criminal." Of course, innocent connotes the opposite. In both instances the word with the "in" prefix predates the "non-prefixed" form, which strikes me as odd. For example, Wyclif, in the late 14th century, used the word innocent in his translation of Ps. 24: "The innocent in hondis and in clene herte..." Also, in his rendering of Heb. 7:26 we have: "Hooly, innosent, inpolute, departid fro mynful men..."

Someone's nocency or nocence is his/her guilt. But then we have a few medical terms relating to how one responds to harm, injury or pain. If someone is nociceptive s/he is "capable of responding to pain or to tissue injury." A more recent defintion of nociceptive is pain that is caused by or associated with tissue injury, such as a 2000 newspaper story which talked about "Nociceptive pain, which is present when there is clear tissue damage, includes such ailments as arthritis of the tip, some types of cancer and an infection in a bone." Again, medicine rushes to our rescue in defining nociferous. Originally it simply meant something harmful, as in this 1706 quotation: "Not that there are no Nociferous Trees as well as Saniferous" (when was the last time you used saniferous in a sentence?). But in the 1950s Dr. W. Penfield used the word to describe an epileptogenic area or focus of the cerebral cortex that interferes with normal brain function or development. Something that is "epiletogenic," by the way, brings on or causes epileptic fits. Thus, the "nociferous" area of the brain did just that. In brain surgery, one resects the entire "nociferous" area.

But, as is often the case with words, a nearby word in the dictionary doesn't necessarily share the same root or meaning. For example, nocerite is a mineral that was originally found near Nocera in Southern Italy. It has nothinng to do with the harmful qualities of anything. Then, a noceur is a "reveller; a rake; a libertine." It is derived from the medieval French word meaning to carouse or celebrate. Oh, by the way, when reading the OED definition of "noceur," I noted that it not only was defined as a "reveller" or a "rake," but also "a person who stays up late at night." If that isn't a value judgment....

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