[Comment] Viruses, vaccinations and RSV: Exploring terminology in paediatric virology

Abstract

Accurate and consistent medical terminology is an essential tool in medical education (1). It enables medical students to understand the meaning of each term, medical physicians to communicate with each other and our science to adopt a logical language of high-level understanding and scientific regularity (2). The linking together of the laboratory, research and clinical practice by medical terminology permits medical physicians to understand and follow the scientific developments in their clinical practice (3). However, in medicine, including paediatric virology, there are several etymologically illogical terms, which cause confusion and misunderstanding (4). The majority of these cases are due to historical bias, which can be explained or justified by historians of medicine, but are interpreted with difficulty by medical students and junior medical staff. The adoption of these terms leads to the continuation of the historical bias, confusion among clinicians and potential misunderstanding.The term virus is an example. It derives from the Latin word virus meaning toxin or poison (5). It was in 1892, almost 128 years ago, when the biologist, Dimitri Ivanokvski in St. Petersburg, Russia, demonstrated that infectious extracts of tobacco plants with tobacco mosaic disease remained infectious following filtration, suggesting that tobacco mosaic disease might be caused by a toxin produced by bacteria (6). Six years later, in 1898, the Dutch scientist, Martinus Beijerinck, reported similar experiments with bacteria-free filtered extracts and introduced the term virus for the filterable and submicroscopic sized causative agent of the tobacco mosaic disease (7). Although he described this agent as a contagium vivum fluidum, his term was based on the hypothesis by Ivanovski that this agent was not a microorganism itself, but a toxin. The Greek term for virus, ios, derives from the ancient Greek verb iimi, meaning 'to move, to cause movement, to put something into something else, to throw the arrow, the poison, the toxin'. Although the choice of this term was based on the poison's translation into ancient Greek, some of the actions of this ancient Greek verb describe, in a unique manner, some of the characteristics of viruses. In the Greek term Iology, ios has been connected with logos, coming from the Greek verb lego, meaning 'to talk about'. Both terms, Virology and Iology, describe the study of viruses.The term vaccination is another example. The word vaccination derives from the Latin word vacca meaning 'the cow' (5). This term was created in order to describe the method of inoculation of pustular material obtained from lesions in cows affected by cowpox, which was developed in 1796 by Dr Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, who later became known as the 'Father of Immunology' (8). The method, which was based on his clinical observation that cowpox infection protected humans against smallpox, replaced variolation, which had been used in clinical prac-

The parallel lives of pandemics: COVID‑19 and obesity

“…In recent years, the field of medical research has been confronted with immense challenges and has achieved significant advancements with regards to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and obesity, both of which are conditions that are forming global health crises with varying degrees of coverage, attitudes and actions (1)(2)(3)(4). The interconnectedness of COVID-19 and obesity is addressed in the present article, which also highlights the complex nature of the interaction between these two prevalent problems in global health (1,2,(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10).…”

Navigating paediatric virology through the COVID‑19 era (Review)

“…The present study was published in the context of the 8th Workshop on Paediatric Virology, which was organised virtually on October 20, 2022, by the Institute of Paediatric Virology (IPV; https://www.paediatricvirology.org) based on the island of Euboea in Greece, under the auspices of the World Academy of Sciences (WAS) and the support of the department of clinical Virology of the University of crete School of Medicine and the First department of Paediatrics of the University of Athens School of Medicine. In the context of the same workshop three more articles by Kramvis et al (7), Maher et al (10) and Mammas et al (89) were published in Biomedical Reports, Medicine International and Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine, respectively.…”