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Table 5 Eponyms rooted in world literature

From: The use of eponyms in medical case reports: etymological, quantitative, and structural analysis

No.

Terms with onomastic components

Number of results in JMCRs as of 2022

Examples from JMCRs

Reference information

Alternative terms (if available)

1.

Rapunzel syndrome

2 results

“Surgical outcome of jejunum-jejunum intussusception secondary to Rapunzel syndrome: a case report” [35]

Rapunzel is the long-haired girl from the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. The psychiatric term “Rapunzel syndrome” means intestinal obstruction due to the pathological desire of patients with some mental disorders to swallow their hair, which causes trichobezoars to form in the intestines [37].

2.

Pickwickian syndrome

1 result

“Based on the Charles Dickens’ character Joe, the fat boy in ‘The Posthumous papers of the Pickwick Club,’ Osler and later Burwell applied the name ‘Pickwickian Syndrome’ to the combination of obesity, hypersomnolence, and the signs of chronic alveolar hypoventilation” [35]

“In 1906, William Osler called obese, sleepy people pickwickians in reference to such a character in Dickens’s novel The Pickwick Club” [37]

Obesity hypoventilation syndrome (3 results)

3.

Munchausen syndrome

2 results

Munchausen syndrome is a factitious disorder that involves falsification of psychological or physical signs or symptoms caused entirely by the patient themselves, in a clear state of consciousness, in order to play the role of a sick person” [35]

The eponym is derived from The Adventures of Baron Munchausen by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe. The protagonist—Baron Munchausen—constantly tells unbelievable, exaggerated, and dubious stories about his military exploits [37].

Factitious disorder imposed on self (0 results)

4.

Syphilis

141 results

“Congenital syphilis, still a reality in twenty-first century: a case report” [35]

“Syphilis was named after the poem Poetical History of the French Disease, written by Hieronymus Fracastorius (Giorolama Fracastoro) in 1525. The hero of the poem, Syphilus, was a shepherd whose flock was dying in the parched land from extreme heat and thirst. He cried out against the Sun and persuaded others to no longer worship him” [37]. As a result, the Sun punished Syphilus, who is supposed to be the first sufferer from this disease.

Lues (4 results), Lues venerea (0 results)

  1. Bold marking highlights the sources of the eponymic terms and their alternatives, it serves for better visualization and just a position of the corresponding lexical phenomena