Bill Long 6/5/07
We should have seen from the last essay that even the most obscure-sounding drugs or medicinal remedies often have the most interesting stories behind them, stories that not only have led to the saving of life but of seemingly strange names being attached to things. In this essay I will examine "leftover" terms from last essay.
As I noted in the previous essay, I will be focusing on a lot of pharmolcological, chemical or medical terms here. I haven't studied these words very well in the past, and so I may trip up on some at my bee. But I am finding them incredible useful and fascinating. I am reminded of a story told by Plato in the Republic about physicians in his kallipolis (beautiful city). He would only permit people who were weak and susceptible to nearly every illness to be physicians. Why? Because then they would truly understand the nature of illness. I have been fortunate over the years in being a healthy person; thus I don't know the names of drugs that would be in the regular vocabulary of people less healthy. Thank you for indulging me here as I learn them.
Ciprofloxacin (sip ro FLOX a sin) is a popular antibiotic today. It is used to treat infections caused by bacteria as well as to treat or prevent anthrax in people who have been exposed to those germs in the air. I think with the "anthrax scare" of a few years ago, people were talking about taking "Cipro" tablets. Ciprofloxacin is in a class of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones (a word also in the Collegiate).
A Digression on "Non-Drug" Words
Fortunately not every new word for me in the "c's" is a drug-related word. Let's paulse on circinate, among others. It means "rounded" or, more specifically, it is appled to a mode of foliation in leaves in which the leaf is rolled up in the shape of a crozier, or bishop's crook, as in most ferns. This is technically known as "circinate vernation," a phrase that would probably be a show-stopper at most parties. The first tendency one might have is to spell the word with a "double n." Disabuse yourself of that notion, and you will get it right.
I think the word cire (sa RAY) is tricky, and so we learn it. It simply means "having a smoothed polished surface," and can be used to describe jackets, or hats or shirts, for example. It is from the French word meaning "waxed." Something cladoceran is a member of a suborder (cladocera) of small branchiopod crustacea, known popularly as water-fleas. As this article says, the Class Branchiopoda (Phylum Arthropoda), consists of 4 suborders, 11 familes, 80 genera an 400 species. Phew. So, we could truly spend many a day learning aobut these free-swimming organisms, with its two-valved carapace and brood pouch. The word is derived from two Greek words--meaning "branch" (klados--hence the field of cladistics) and "horn" (keras). These were so named because they have "branched or ramose antennae." The good words just keep piling up, don't they?
Let's try to go really quickly to get through the entire list. Something cleidoic (derived from the Greek word for key--to mean something "locked up") is "closed up: used of an egg encased in a shell or membrane." The word was first used in 1931: "The avian egg is thus, in the strictest sense of the word, a closed box, with walls which can only be penetrated by matter in the gaseous state. The term 'cleidoic'...is suggested for this state of affairs." Another 20th century term. We also have cleistagamous, a term first attested in Charles Darwin's work (mid-1870s), which literally means "closed marriage." Well, it has been applied to certain small permanently closed flowers, which I don't really understand at this point. The Oxalis acetosella is the leading example of a cleistogamous flower.
Speaking of flowers/plants, we have clintonia, which has nothing to do with Bill or Hillary, but is named after Governor DeWitt Clinton (NY; 1769-1828), also a naturalist. It is popularly known as the Blue Bead lily, but its scientific name is the Clintonia borealis (borealis suggest something from tehhe northern regions). Clivia, pronounced KLI via, is a plant of African amaryllids with orange, red, or yellow flowers. To show you how ignorant of reality I am, there is even an American Clivia Society, whose web page is here. You can study them to your heart's content. The web site says that one of its purposes is to "foster an interest in Clivia." Well, maybe I will be "hooked" on them some day, but I fear I may never pursue the knowledge deeply enough for that purpose. Well, can't weep now. We have words to learn.
Finishing with Drugs/Medical Terms
The four remaining "cl"-words are citrulline, clonazepam, clonidine, and clotrimazole. What can I say in brief compass? Well, I am not going to be able to explain citrulline to my own satisfaction. It is derived from the Latin word for watermelon (citrullus) because it is an amino acid derived from the watermelon. Much more could be said about clonazepam, an anti-epilepsy drug. It belongs to a group of medications called the benzodiazepines (ben so di AZ ah peens). Fortunately, this word is also in the Collegiate, so I am killing all kinds of birds with few stones. But the fascinating thing I learned by brief study of clonazepam is that it was part of the revolution in the 1960s where this new group of sedatives, known as tranquilizers, was introduced. Dr. Leo Sternback discovered the benzodiazepines. Well, we had chlordiazepoxide (Librium) in 1960 (also in the Collegiate) to manage emotional, psychosomatic and muscular disorders. The ever-popular diazepam, known popularly as Valium, was introduced in 1963 and was a huge commercial success for Roche Pharmaceuticals. The article I read goes on to talk about a lot of new antibiotic, HIV and other drugs, including ganciclovir (Cytovene) to treat CMV retinitis. Ganciclovir was misspelled in our 2005 competition. This could go on and on.
Conclusion
The final two words, clonidine and clotrimazole, are, respectively, anti-hypertensive and anti-yeast infection drugs. The former has been used to treat ADHD and Tourette syndrome by reducing tics, improving hyperactivity and decreasing obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The latter treats "yeast infections of the vagina, mouth and skin such as athlete's foot, jock itch and body ringworm." Not very elegant to speak about clotrimazole in polite company, I bet, but it is pretty helpful if you have one of those conditions. Almost everyone who works out seriously at one time or another in his/her life develops one. I never knew the word clotrimazole, however, before a few days ago.
Thanks for joining me on this tour. The world is a wide, wide place, as Cat Stevens told us in song.
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