myelitis

Note: The word was apparently introduced by the German physician Christian Friedrich Harless (Harleß, in some of his publications Harles, 1773-1853) in "Valerian Aloys Brera über die Entzündung des Rückenmarks," Jahrbücher der teutschen Medicin und Chirurgie, 2. Band (1813), p. 244. Harless's essay purports to be a translation of "Della rachialgite - Cenni patologici" by the Italian physician Valeriano Luigi Brera (1772-1840), published in Atti dell'Accademia italiana di lettere, scienze, ed arti, tomo primo, parte prima, Livorno, 1810, pp. 247-76. Brera, however, uses only the word rachialgite for inflammation of the spinal chord, which Harless latinizes as Rhachialgitis. In a footnote introducing this word Harless adds: "Man könnte auch wohl, noch bezeichnender, für die Entzündung des Rückenmarks selbst den Namen Myelitis wählen, um so füglicher, weil μυελος bei Hippokrates, Galen, u.a. griech. Aertzen häufig ohne den Zusatz des Beiworts νωτιαιος (dorsalis) zur Bezeichnung des Rückenmarks gebraucht wird." ("One could as well also choose myelitis as a more aptly characterizing name for inflammation of the spinal marrow, the more justifiable because Hippocrates, Galen and other Greek physicians frequently used myelos without the addition of the modifying word nōtiaios (dorsalis [spinal]) as a designation for spinal marrow.")