the.com/pathology
the art of asking the dead what killed the living.
means The scientific study of diseases — their causes, mechanisms, and effects on the body — often involving the examination of tissues, organs, and bodily fluids to diagnose what's gone wrong.
from From the Greek 'pathos' (suffering, feeling) joined to '-logia' (the study of) — so literally 'the study of suffering.' That same 'pathos' runs through a whole family of words about feeling and ailment: sympathy (suffering-with), apathy (without feeling), empathy. Medicine borrowed it through Latin and into English by the 16th–17th century, turning the study of suffering into the study of what causes it.
- name origin
- Greek pathos, suffering, plus logos, study
- silent diagnosis
- 70% of medical decisions rely on lab pathology
- founding father
- Rudolf Virchow traced disease to single cells
- slide army
- a single biopsy yields dozens of stained sections
- deep time
- dinosaur bones show cancer 70 million years old
virchow's cellular pathology — rudolf virchow's 1858 work established that disease originates at cellular level, founding modern pathology