Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 14

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June 14

ringworm

Ringworm is a misnomer; there are no worm of any sort involved. But how did it get its English name?

I'm assuming that the name "ringworm" was coined before the advent of microbiology and thus whoever coined the term did not know that it was a fungal infection. But why did they assume that it was some sort of a worm? Why a "ring" worm? Was it confused with a worm, e.g. dracunculiasis, that causes similar symptoms? Scala Cats (talk) 20:57, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

"Ring" because the skin lesions are circular or ring-shaped. - Nunh-huh 22:22, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

According to Hidden Secrets to Curing Ringworm by Brian Salt (p. 8), the worms were thought to travel in laps under the skin, creating the circular marks. In 1837, an unnamed Polish doctor discovered that no worms were involved. Alansplodge (talk) 23:39, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

A more reliable source may be Roots of Ecology: Antiquity to Haeckel by Frank N. Egerton (p. 180), which identifies Robert Remak as the Polish doctor (in Berlin) referred to, although David Gruby (in Paris) was also working on fungal diseases at the same time and was the first to identify the ringworm fungus. Alansplodge (talk) 23:49, 14 June 2017 (UTC)

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, and in between they spin about —Tamfang (talk) 07:06, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Or maybe nobody ever believed in worms; Fungi as Human Pathogens from the University of Hawaii says:

"Ringworm and Related Dermatophytes... The Greeks called it Herpes (=circular or ring form) and the Romans associated the disease with the larval stage of Tinea, the genus for clothes moth. The two names were eventually combined to "ringworm". Although the actual cause of ringworm was not known until the early 1800s, the practice of segregating infected individuals to prevent spread of the disease indicated that there was knowledge that this disease was contagious and prevalent, and could be passed from person to person was known prior to the cause of infection".

So the "worm" element may just be a reference to the Latin name Tinea after the Tinea moth (the ringworm lesions were supposed to resemble the holes made by clothes-moth larvae). Alansplodge (talk) 08:55, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

Or they did believe in worms, just somewhere else Lectonar (talk) 09:02, 15 June 2017 (UTC)

The 'worms crawling laps under skin' thing is not so crazy. Lots of leaf miners are broadly wormy things that crawl around inside a leaf and leave distinctive and distinguishing patterns. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2017 (UTC)