Everything about Etiology totally explained
Etiology (alternately
aetiology,
aitiology) is the study of
causation. Derived from the
Greek, "giving a reason for" ("cause" + ).
The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it's used to refer to the study of why things occur, or even the reasons behind the way that things act, and is used in
philosophy,
physics,
psychology, government, and
medicine, and
biology in reference to the causes of various phenomena. An
etiological myth is a
myth intended to explain a name or create a mythic history for a place or family.
Medicine
In medicine in particular, the term refers to the causes of
diseases or
pathologies. The study of etiology in medicine dates back to
Muslim physicians in the
medieval Islamic world, who discovered the contagious nature of
infectious diseases such as
scabies,
tuberculosis and
sexually transmitted disease. In
The Canon of Medicine,
Avicenna discovered that they're caused by contagion that can spread through bodily contact or through
water and
soil. He also stated that bodily
secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected.
Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) was the first physician to provide a scientific etiology for the
inflammatory diseases of the
ear, and the first to clearly discuss the causes of
stridor. Through his
dissections, he proved that the
skin disease scabies was caused by a
parasite, a discovery which upset the
Galenic theory of
humorism, and he was able to successfully remove the parasite from a patient's body without any
purging or
bleeding.
When the
Black Death bubonic plague reached
al-Andalus in the 14th century,
Ibn Khatima posited that
infectious diseases are caused by
microorganisms which enter the human body. Another Andalusian physician,
Ibn al-Khatib (1313-1374), wrote a treatise called
On the Plague, stating that
contagion can spread through
garments,
vessels and
earrings. The story of
Prometheus' sacrifice-trick in
Hesiod's
Theogony relates how Prometheus tricked
Zeus into choosing the bones and fat of the first sacrificial animal rather than the meat to justify why, after a sacrifice, the Greeks offered the bones wrapped in fat to the gods while keeping the meat for themselves.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Etiology'.
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