MEDICAL DICTIONARY

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” – Voltaire

I am currently working on a medical dictionary and together with my two fellow editors-in-chief we have been very busy over the last few months getting together the second edition of this monumental work. I am now examining the picture entries that illustrate the words and this is the fun part, sorting through various images and determining their suitability. To a certain extent the choice of image can be the clinching factor in making a dictionary entry clear and lucid. No matter how good a definition is, if the accompanying image is poor, then the whole entry can confuse rather than illuminate. If the image is as good as the definition, the reader will be doubly enlightened.

So, no surprise that today’s word is a medical one:

cystoscope |ˈsistəˌskōp| noun Medicine
An instrument inserted into the urethra for examining the urinary bladder.
DERIVATIVES
cystoscopic |ˌsistəˈskäpik| adjective
cystoscopy |sisˈtäskəpē| noun
ORIGIN early 18th century: From late Latin cystis, from Greek kustis ‘bladder’ and from modern Latin -scopium, from Greek skopein ‘look at’.

Be well and be happy!