names are condensed stories (Mukherjee)

 

Siddhartha Mukherjee, The emperor of all maladies, 2010               [ ]

p.46

Even an ancient monster needs a name. To name an illness is to describe a certain condition of suffering--a literary act before it becomes a medical one. A patient, long before he becomes the subject of medical scrutiny, is, at first, simply a storyteller, a narrator of suffering--a traveler who has visited the kingdom of the ill. To relieve an illness, one must begin, then, by unburdening its story.

   The names of ancient illnesses are condensed stories in their own right. 

   (The emperor of all maladies : a biography of cancer, Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2010, ) 

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πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα πόλλ' οἶδ' ἀλώπηξ,ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἓν μέγα