What is “epidemic”?
November 3, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
For discussion of autism not being an epidemic, go here and here and here. Myself being a Classicist who studies and teaches ancient Greek, I wish to offer a bit more of a sense of what the root words of “epidemic” mean.
“Epidemic” is from the preposition epi (which means, among other things, “among, upon, at, on”) and the noun demos, “people” (as in the demo in “democracy”). In ancient Greek, the adjecitve epidemios means “among the people” and “sojourning among” (compare the noun epidemia, a “stay in a place,” and the verb epidemein, “be at home, live at home, reside”). It is because of this basic meaning of “being among the people” that epidemios also means “common, commonplace”—and then, “prevalent, epidemic.”
Epidemia can be translated as the “prevalence of an epidemic” in the ancient medical writer Hippocrates’s Nature of Man, 9 . Note, though, that epidemia means “prevalence” and the word that is translated as “epidemic” is nousematos, from nosema, “disease.”
In ancient Greek, the root words for “epidemic” are not about the disease itself, but about something widespread–common, even commonplace—among people.
Ia autism “epidemic,” then, because we are understanding more and more what we are seeing as “autism”?
I went to school with people who, were they NOW at school might very well be considered spectrum. I worked as a volunteer with children who had the MR diagnosis, but who would now be seen as autistic- and many of them were getting that diagnosis in the three years I volunteered.
That’s in 20 years. What the situation was like before then I dont know, but it doesnt seem to me like there are any more autie children rattling about.
Perhaps the only epidemic is one of intolerance?
Intolerance then or now….
“Intolerance then or now…”
both.
differently.
i think one thing is intolerance by regular people and another is intolerance by “experts”, although they are related.
and some other thing that i can’t quite pinpoint at this moment with today’s fuzzy brain.
Good question… and good points from Natalia
It’s given me a lot to think about…
The vast majority of epidemic-hype people are not using “epidemic” that way. So no, autism is not an epidemic, etymology or no etymology.
Right. Because of my own professional interests, it irks me to see how people make mistakes in referring to ancient Greek—not the most important thing to worry about, but worth drawing attention to.
Oddly, the only way that I’ve ever dealt with epidemic is in my population dynamics class in college. It was a specialty biology class for premeds, and I had to get a waiver to take it – and boy, was it fun (er, I never said I wasn’t a major geek).
But essentially, epidemic is an equation that describes a curve in science. It has a pretty specific definition that is related to the virulence of an organism. Therefore, from a scientific perspective (as I understand it) it is appropriate to talk about an epidemic of cholera; it is not appropriate to talk about an epidemic of autism, because it isn’t catching.
I realize some would vociferously disagree about that last bit, but there it is.