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Monday, September 20, 2010

Juvenis Interruptus more accurate for RHD ?

Someone ,who admits they are not a Latin scholar, wondered about my use of Juvenis Rumpo to describe RHD (Rheumatic Heart Disease.)

They thought Juvenis Interruptus seemed a more likely term, based on the much better known phrase coitus interruptus.

They may be right.

About four years ago,I had been reading an account of  some
notable early Rheumatic heart Disease (RHD) cases of a doctor who had specialized in that very serious and widespread disease.

He had mentioned RHD was also sometimes called "-------" (a New Latin medical term) which could be translated as Youth Interrupted in English.

I remembered his explanation why this little known term was so appropriate , but not his name or the actual Latin phrase.

I merely tried to translate the English term back into Latin, using a half dozen translation engines to get a consensus.

All used Rumpo ---- but I was concerned that when I back-translated the term back yet again into English - it came out  a youth torn into two (!)

Technically accurate, I suppose, to describe the break in youthful activities engendered when your loving parents learned you have had permanent damage to your heart caused by a bout of acute Rheumatic Fever, (RF) and that you must not tax your heart.

My brother, for example, had RF when he was four
and years later,when he was 20, a doctor examining him before he ran in a race, noticed he had a heart murmur.

 This was something his parents had not known, so he had not been overly-protected : his youth was not interrupted.

But in English, Rumpo is an unknown Latin term, while Interruptus is in fact a very frequently used term to create cod-latin phrases.

In any case, I will be glad to hear comments from people more familiar with Medical New Latin than me...

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