Introduction

"A Handbook of The Latin Language in Medicine" for English-speaking students learning medical Latin, has been written with the intention of giving them a general outline of the Latin language and culture. Our culture owes much to ancient culture. When studying English and other modern languages of Latin roots, students will get a better insight into many contemporary language words.
The present course of Latin can give the learners a direct assistance in improving their ability to read and write medical prescriptions and diagnoses, as the objective of this course of Latin is to teach practical skills using the essential medical vocabulary.
The course consists of 30 chapters which cover the basic grammar illustrated with examples. Each chapter is made up of the following parts: grammar section which explains grammatical phenomena, and another section: "exercises", containing sentences, as well as proverbs, and vocabulary. In the final section the book contains general Latin-English and English-Latin vocabulary list.
The aim of these Latin classes is to teach the grammar and essential specialist vocabulary in order to help the students achieve the skill of understanding the medical terminology. Another aim is to teach the structure of and the skill of forming medical expressions names of drugs, prescriptions, also chemical nomenclature, and give the students a rudimentary knowledge of grammatical structures that they can develop in their further individual study, and also to introduce into the grammar system of the Latin language and its comparison with the structures of other languages and thus, enhance and make their study easier.
After two terms of study the number of learnt Latin vocabulary entries and Latin expressions on which medical terminology is based may reach about 700. This number also includes Greek expressions. A very important part of the study of the vocabulary is creating expressions. Students learn how to form them:
- by using prefixes and sufixes
- by putting together single Latin or Greek expressions, thus making complex medical expressions.
The grammar section is reduced to the minimum that is sufficient for understanding Latin specialist terminology. For practical reasons some word forms like pronouns, verbs, conjunctions, interjections are omitted.
Grammar minimum contents:
- a brief introduction to pronounciation and spelling
- all five declensions together with exceptions regarding medical terminology
- declension and comparison of adjectives in its complete system
- numerals
- a brief review of verbs with stress on the practical use of the imperative and conjunctive, and the main prepositions in prescribing medicines.
- prefixes and sufixes.
There are also the most common Greek expressions, review of numerals,
declension of substantives and adjectives, formation of specialised
derived and compound expressions.
The whole tuition is oriented not to teaching a student to memorize the
vocabulary mechanically, but to let him/her understand the system of
forming expressions. This active attitude to learning Latin should lead
the student to individual work on specialist medical texts, and
development of his practical skills.
This book has been based on the following sources:
M. Chomoncik, Język łaciński dla studentow medycyny, Białystok 1993
S. Filipczak-Nowicka, Lingua Latina ad usum medicinae studentium, Warszawa 1983,
S. Jędrzejowski, Latin for Students of English Philology, Opole 1981,
A. Kosovik, L. D. Sipailo, Lingua Latina medicinalis, Kiev 1985,
The Latin Language, A Handbook for Students. Prepared By the Scottish Classics Group, Oliver & Boyd, England 1989,
W. Szulc, Łacina medyczna, Poznań 1995,
J. Swidecki, Latinitas medica, Warszawa 1972.