Archive for Language and medicine

A non-stigmatizing Chinese word for epilepsy

In an article entitled “A new symbol for epilepsy in Chinese", Mind Hacks asserts:

The Chinese character for epilepsy has been changed to avoid the inaccuracies and stigma associated with the previous label which suggested links to madness and, more unusually, animals.

The new name, which looks like this 腦癇症 just makes reference to the brain although the story of how the original name got its meaning is quite fascinating in itself.

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