Vital Statistics

摘要

The profession of medicine has oftenbeen accused of using big words to hidestark realities, of masking uncomfortablesituations that are customarily described byless decorous, blunter, more readily understoodAnglo-Saxon words. The ancientGreeks had a word for this; they called thisprocess of employing courteous circumlocutions,euphemy. The eu- prefix denotesgood, well or normal, as in words such aseucaryote, eugenic (healthy birth), euglobulin,Eugene (nobly born), euphoria(well-being) but not eunuch (derived fromthe Greek root eune meaning bed).