Language file #1: Graves/Basedow Disease

Sorry it has been a while since I last posted. I hope to write more as the summer vacation arrives (tomorrow), starting with the startling difference between teacher's responsibilities in Japan compared to Australia.

But first, a short post.

In a recent discussion, I was introduced to the term バセドー病 (バセドーびょう, basedoo byou), which in English is Basedow's Disease. I had never heard of it. However, the way that the people were describing it sounded like some sort of hyperthyroidism. Coming from a science background, I had to know more information about why it is named this, since it is written in katakana and is the name of someone.

After consulting Wikipedia-さん (I just made that up - people don't say that here), I found out that it is named Graves' Disease in English. So, why are there two names for the same disease? Well, that's where history and sociolinguistics (the effect of society on language) comes to play.

Irish doctor Robert James Graves described a unique set of symptoms in 1835, but at the same time German Karl Adolph von Basedow independently reported the same set of symptoms in 1840 (Wikipedia, 2015). Apparently Basedow's Disease is sometimes heard in languages of continental European countries to this day, but I cannot confirm that at this stage. This still doesn't explain why it is used in Japan.

At this time in Japanese history, things were getting very interesting. The country was about to be thrown into turmoil by the arrival of the modern world with Commodore Matthew Perry's first arrival in 1853. Leaders were either reluctantly pro-Western or vehemently against anything to do with the "stinking, hairy, colononizing barbarians". Think of the times. As we know, the result of those complex times was the abolishment of the samurai system around 1868 and the adoption of a Western-like society. The leaders around that time wanted to learn as much as they could from the West. Some wanted to genuinely learn to improve the future of their country, others wanted to learn and then use that knowledge to prevent or defeat any potential colonization threats (of the "keep your enemy closer" way of thinking). They learned about the navy from the British, military strategy from the United States, government from the British and US, fashion from the continental Europeans and science and medical knowledge from Germany. This is not technically correct though. The Japanese had been learning slowly about Western medicine from the Dutch and Portuguese from as early as their first arrival in 1543.

Anyway, this helps us understand the naming of Basedow's Disease, named after the German scientist Basedow, which was probably brought over to the country during that massive influx of German medical terminology in the late 19th century.

On an interesting side note, many medical students in Japan are required to do at least one German language learning subject at university as part of their course. This is on top of learning English of course. From a science point of view, this also explains why they refer to Potassium (K) as Kalium, sodium (Na) as Natrium etc..

Graves' disease. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved July 17, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graves%27_disease