Clinical Terminology

Abstract

When, in the fifteenth century, Gutenberg’s invention of the movable type led to the mass production and dissemination of books and written information; language was still relatively unformalized. It took until the eighteenth century before the great dictionaries and nomenclatures such as Dr. Johnson’s English Dictionary and Linnaeus’ biological taxonomy were produced. Medical terminology escaped formalization, leading to problems of ambiguity that are now recognized as significant risk to patient safety.