Editorial Eponymophilia in rheumatology

An eponym is the name of a drug structure or a disease based on or derived from the name of a person. Eponyms are widely used in medicine to denote both specific disease states and to honour those who discovered, described or best characterized them. Despite the attempts of some editors and medical schools to rationalize medical terminology and expunge many eponyms, eponymophilia lives on, mainly for reasons of convenience and, as many medical students suspect, to serve as a means by which one can either shine on rounds or be shamed by not knowing an eponym important to the consultant. The enthusiasm for particular eponyms has waxed and waned over time. Increasing medical knowledge and changes in classification have made some of them obsolete while new eponyms continue to appear. Political events have influenced the use of some eponyms while others just fell out of fashion. A few examples of eponyms ’ use and abuse in rheumatology will serve to make the point that eponyms are often misapplied and falsely attributed. Some of them tend to excessively honour the eponymee while others appear quite simply arcane. Some eponyms are tendential and fraught with political or even jingoistic context. To make matters more complicated, eponyms are inconsistently applied across regions, countries and medical specialties, and some diseases have been linked to more than one name. Despite best efforts to categorize them, there are, in fact, an unknown number of eponyms used in medicine. Many books in numerous languages list eponyms, some of which are very scholarly and give the student an insight into the person they seek to honour. Current English language books include Marcucci’