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Medical Oncology
Published in: Medical Oncology 3/2021

01-03-2021 | Short Communication

Oncology: etymology of the term

Author: Diederik F. Janssen

Published in: Medical Oncology | Issue 3/2021

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Abstract

The OED lists oncologia (a Latinization of Greek ογκολογία, ὄγκος + λόγια) as a dictionary term attested from 1860. The neoclassical term is much older, however. The neo-Greek term was used in the title of two seventeenth-century medical tracts on assorted tumors, first in a 1618 medical dissertation by Balthasar Simon. “Oncology” was more definitively established in Rudolf Virchow’s Die krankhaften Geschwülste, a 1862/3 lecture series and trilogy on the subject.
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Metadata
Title
Oncology: etymology of the term
Author
Diederik F. Janssen
Publication date
01-03-2021
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Medical Oncology / Issue 3/2021
Print ISSN: 1357-0560
Electronic ISSN: 1559-131X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-021-01471-4

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