Etiology (alternatively aetiology, aitiology) is the study of causation Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event (the effect), where the second event is a consequence of the first, or origination. The word is derived from the Greek Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning the Archaic , Classical (c. 5th–4th centuries BC), and Hellenistic (c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD) periods of ancient Greece and the ancient world. It is predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek. Its Hellenistic phase is known as Koine (& αἰτιολογία, aitiologia, "giving a reason for" (αἰτία, aitia, "cause"; and -λογία, -logia).^[1]

The word is most commonly used in medical and philosophical theories, where it is 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 Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, physics Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through space-time, as well as all applicable concepts, such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves, psychology Psychology is the scientific study of human or other animal mental functions and behaviors. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist. Psychologists are classified as social or behavioral scientists. Psychological research can be considered either basic or applied. Psychologists attempt to understand the, government A government is the organization, or agency through which a political unit exercises its authority, controls and administers public policy, and directs and controls the actions of its members or subjects, medicine Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Before scientific medicine, healing arts were practised in accordance with alchemical treatments and ritual practices that developed out of religious and cultural traditions, theology Theology is the study of a god or, more generally, the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, or of spirituality and biology Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy in reference to the causes of various phenomena. An etiological myth is a myth The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths or a body of myths. For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story; however, the academic 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 A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal disfunctions, such as autoimmune diseases or pathologies In medicine, pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease. The related scientific study of disease processes is called "general pathology". Medical pathology is divided into two main branches, anatomical pathology and clinical pathology. Medical pathologists work through examination of organs, tissues, bodily fluids, and whole bodies.^[2] The first ideas about microorganisms A microorganism or microbe is an organism that is microscopic (too small to be seen by the naked human eye). The study of microorganisms is called microbiology, a subject that began with Anton van Leeuwenhoek's discovery of microorganisms in 1675, using a microscope of his own design were those of the Ancient Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world scholar Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro , also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer in a 1st century BC book titled On Agriculture.^[3] Contemporary medieval thinking on the etiology of disease was influenced by Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin, and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. As the son of a wealthy architect with scholarly interests, Galen received a comprehensive and quality and Hippocrates Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos - Greek: Ἱπποκράτης; Hippokrátēs was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles (Classical Athens), and is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the Western father of medicine in recognition of his lasting contributions to the.^[4] Medieval European Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the doctors generally held the view that disease was related to the air and adopted a miasmatic approach The miasmatic theory of disease held that diseases such as cholera, chlamydia or the Black Death were caused by a miasma , a noxious form of "bad air". This concept has been supplanted by the germ theory of disease to disease etiology.^[5] In The Canon of Medicine The Canon of Medicine is a 14-volume medical encyclopedia written by Persian scientist and physician Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) and completed in 1025. The book was based on a combination of his own personal experience, medieval Islamic medicine, the writings of the Roman physician Galen, the Indian physicians Sushruta and Charaka, and Persian medicine,, Avicenna Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā', known as Abū Alī Sīnā or, more commonly, Ibn Sīnā (Arabic: ابن سینا‎), but most commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (Greek: Aβιτζιανός, Avitzianós), (c. 980 - 1037) was a polymath of Persian origin and the foremost physician and philosopher of his discovered that they are caused by contagion that can spread through bodily contact or through water Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. Its molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state, water vapor or steam and soil Soil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics.^[6] He also stated that bodily secretion Secretion is the process of elaborating, releasing, and oozing chemicals, or a secreted chemical substance from a cell or gland. In contrast to excretion, the substance may have a certain function, rather than being a waste product is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected.^[7]

Ibn Zuhr Abū Merwān ’Abdal-Malik ibn Zuhr (also known as Ibn Zuhr, Avenzoar, Abumeron or Ibn-Zohr) (1091–1161) was an Arab Muslim physician, pharmacist, surgeon, parasitologist, Islamic scholar and teacher in Al-Andalus (Avenzoar) was the first physician to provide a scientific etiology for the inflammatory diseases Inflammation is part of the complex biological response of vascular tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. Inflammation is a protective attempt by the organism to remove the injurious stimuli and to initiate the healing process. Inflammation is not a synonym for infection. Even in cases where inflammation is of the ear The ear is the organ that detects sound. The vertebrate ear shows a common biology from fish to humans, with variations in structure according to order and species. It not only acts as a receiver for sound, but also plays a major role in the sense of balance and body position. The ear is part of the auditory system, and the first to clearly discuss the causes of stridor Stridor is a high pitched sound resulting from turbulent air flow in the upper airway. It is primarily inspiratory. It can be indicative of serious airway obstruction from severe conditions such as epiglottitis, a foreign body lodged in the airway, or a laryngeal tumor. Stridor is indicative of a potential medical emergency and should always.^[8] Through his dissections In the past, anatomization of the body of a convicted person was sometimes ordered as part of the punisment. It happened in 1805 in Massechusetts to James Halligan and Dominic Daley after their public hanging. The bodies were taken to the local slaughterhouse. Their remains were denied a burial, he proved that the skin disease scabies Scabies, also known as sarcoptic mange and colloquially known as the itch, is a contagious ectoparasitic skin infection characterized by superficial burrows and intense pruritus . It is caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei. The word scabies itself is derived from the Latin word (scabere) for "scratch". More severe forms of scabies was caused by a parasite Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the host, a discovery which upset the Galenic Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamum (modern-day Bergama, Turkey), was a prominent Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin, and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. As the son of a wealthy architect with scholarly interests, Galen received a comprehensive and quality theory of humorism Humorism, or humoralism, was a theory of the makeup and workings of the human body adopted by Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers. From Hippocrates onward, the humoral theory was adopted by Greek, Roman and Islamic physicians, and became the most commonly held view of the human body among European physicians until the advent of modern, and he was able to successfully remove the parasite from a patient's body without any purging or bleeding Bleeding, technically known as hemorrhaging or haemorrhaging is the loss of blood or blood escape from the circulatory system. Bleeding can occur internally, where blood leaks from blood vessels inside the body or externally, either through a natural opening such as the vagina, mouth, nose, ear or anus, or through a break in the skin. The complete.^[9]

When the Black Death The Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged. Usually thought to have started in Central Asia, it had reached the Crimea by 1346. From reached al-Andalus Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation in the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Berbers and African Muslims (given the generic name of Moors), at various times in the period between 711 and 1492 in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima proposed that infectious diseases An infectious disease is a clinically evident illness resulting from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents, including pathogenic viruses, pathogenic bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular parasites, and aberrant proteins known as prions. These pathogens are able to cause disease in animals and/or plants. Infectious pathologies are also are caused by microscopic particles which enter the human body. Another Andalusian physician, Ibn al-Khatib (1313–1374), wrote a treatise called On the Plague, stating that the contagion could spread via garments A feature of all modern human societies is the wearing of clothing, a category encompassing a wide variety of materials that cover the body. The primary purpose of clothing is functional, as a protection from the elements. Clothes also enhance safety during hazardous activities such as hiking and cooking, by providing a barrier between the skin, vessels and earrings Earrings are jewelry attached to the ear through a piercing in the earlobe or some other external part of the ear . Earrings are worn by both sexes. In western cultures, earrings have traditionally been worn primarily by women, although in recent decades, ear piercing has also become popular among men in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa[.^[7]

Etiological discovery in medicine has a history in Robert Koch Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch was a German physician. He became famous for isolating Bacillus anthracis (1877), the Tuberculosis bacillus (1882) and the Vibrio cholerae (1883) and for his development of Koch's postulates. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings in 1905. He is considered one of the's demonstration that the tubercle bacillus (Mycobacterium tuberculosis Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogenic bacterial species in the genus Mycobacterium and the causative agent of most cases of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, M. tuberculosis has an unusual, waxy coating on the cell surface (primarily mycolic acid), which makes the cells impervious to Gram staining so acid-fast detection complex) causes the disease tuberculosis Tuberculosis or TB is a common and often deadly infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis in humans. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body. It is spread through the air, when people who have the disease cough, sneeze, or spit. Most infections in, Bacillus anthracis Bacillus anthracis is a Gram-positive spore-forming, rod-shaped bacterium, with a width of 1-1.2µm and a length of 3-5µm. It can be grown in an ordinary nutrient medium under aerobic or anaerobic conditions[citation needed]. It is the only bacterium with a protein capsule , and the only pathogenic bacteria to carry its own adenylyl cyclase causes anthrax Anthrax is an acute disease caused by the bacteria Bacillus anthracis. Most forms of the disease are lethal, and it affects both humans and other animals. There are effective vaccines against anthrax, and some forms of the disease respond well to antibiotic treatment, and Vibrio cholerae Vibrio cholerae is a gram negative comma shaped bacterium with a polar flagellum that causes cholera in humans. V. cholerae and other species of the genus Vibrio belong to the gamma subdivision of the Proteobacteria. There are two major biotypes of V. cholerae, classical and El Tor, and numerous other serogroups causes cholera Cholera is a severe bacterial infection caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae, which primarily affects the small intestine. The main symptoms include profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission is primarily by the acquisition of the pathogen through contaminated drinking water or infected food. The severity of the diarrhea and associated. This line of thinking and evidence is summarized in Koch's postulates Koch's postulates are four criteria designed to establish a causal relationship between a causative microbe and a disease. The postulates were formulated by Robert Koch and Friedrich Loeffler in 1884 and refined and published by Koch in 1890. Koch applied the postulates to establish the etiology of anthrax and tuberculosis, but they have been. But proof of causation in infectious diseases is limited to individual cases that provide experimental evidence of etiology.

In epidemiology Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations, and serves as the foundation and logic of interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. It is considered a cornerstone methodology of public health research, and is highly regarded in evidence-based medicine for identifying risk, several lines of evidence together are required to infer causation. Sir Austin Bradford-Hill Sir Austin Bradford Hill FRS , English epidemiologist and statistician, pioneered the randomized clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, was the first to demonstrate the connection between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Hill is widely known for pioneering the "Bradford-Hill" criteria for determining a causal association demonstrated a causal relationship between smoking and lung cancer, and summarized the line of reasoning in the epidemiological criteria for causation. Dr. Al Evans, a US epidemiologist, synthesized his predecessors' ideas in proposing the Unified Concept of Causation.

Further thinking in epidemiology was required to distinguish causation from association or statistical correlation. Events may occur together simply due to chance Randomness is a concept of non-order or non-coherence in a sequence of symbols or steps, such that there is no intelligible pattern or combination. Randomness has somewhat disparate meanings as used in several different fields. It also has common meanings which may have loose connections with some of those more definite meanings. The Oxford, bias or confounding, instead of one event being caused by the other. It is also important to know which event is the cause. Careful sampling and measurement are more important than sophisticated statistical analysis to determine causation. Experimental evidence involving interventions (providing or removing the supposed cause) gives the most compelling evidence of etiology.

Etiology is sometimes a part of a chain of causation. An etiological agent of disease may require an independent co-factor, and be subject to a promoter (increases expression) to cause disease. An example of all the above, which was recognized late, is that peptic ulcer disease may be induced by stress, requires the presence of acid secretion in the stomach, and has primary etiology in Helicobacter pylori infection. Many chronic diseases of unknown cause may be studied in this framework to explain multiple epidemiological associations or risk factors which may or may not be causally related, and to seek the actual etiology.

Some diseases, such as diabetes or hepatitis, are syndromically defined by their signs and symptoms, but include different conditions with different etiologies. Conversely, a single etiology, such as Epstein-Barr virus, may in different circumstances produce different diseases such as mononucleosis, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, or Burkitt's lymphoma.

Mythology

An etiological myth, or origin myth, is a myth intended to explain the origins of cult practices, natural phenomena, proper names and the like. For example, the name Delphi and its associated deity, Apollon Delphinios, are explained in the Homeric Hymn which tells of how Apollo carried Cretans over the sea in the shape of a dolphin (delphis) to make them his priests. While Delphi is actually related to the word delphus ("womb"), many etiological myths are similarly based on folk etymology (the term "Amazon", for example). In the Aeneid (published circa 17 BC), Vergil claims the descent of Augustus Caesar's Julian clan from the hero Aeneas through his son Ascanius, also called Iulus. 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.

See also

• Eschatology
• Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas (Latin phrase)
• Geomythology
• Just-so story (comparable to etiological myth)

References

1. ^ Aetiology (2nd ed. ed.). Oxford University Press. 2002. ISBN 0195219422.
2. ^ Greene J (1996). "The three C's of etiology". Wide Smiles. http://www.widesmiles.org/cleftlinks/WS-364.html. Retrieved 2007-08-20. Discusses several examples of the medical usage of the term etiology in the context of cleft lips and explains methods used to study causation.
3. ^ Varro On Agriculture 1,xii Loeb
4. ^ Maimonides: an early but accurate view on the treatment of hemorrhoids -- Magrill and Sekaran 83 (979): 352 -- Postgraduate Medical Journal
5. ^ Case study: the history and ethics clean air
6. ^ George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science. (cf. Dr. A. Zahoor and Dr. Z. Haq (1997), Quotations From Famous Historians of Science, Cyberistan.
7. ^ ^{a b} Ibrahim B. Syed, Ph.D. (2002). "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the Islamic Medical Association 2, p. 2-9.
8. ^ Prof. Dr. Mostafa Shehata, "The Ear, Nose and Throat in Islamic Medicine", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2003 (1): 2-5 [4].
9. ^ Islamic medicine, Hutchinson Encyclopedia.

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