lithotripsy

Note: The word lithotripsy was introduced by the French physician Charles Louis Stanislas Heurteloup (1793-1864) as a replacement for the earlier term lithotrity. The change is noted in an article "On the new method of destroying vesical calculi, by means of percussion … from a memoir by Baron Heurteloup," forwarded to the journal The Lancet (1831-32, v. 2 [May 26, 1832], pp. 234-38) by D. O. Edwards of Westminster Hospital, who wrote an introduction, may have had a role in translating the text from French. According to Heurteloup, "The modifications which have been admitted in this operation make the original name [lithotrity] no longer applicable, for its derivation from λιθος, and τετράω [tetráō, erroneously for tetraínō "bore through, perforate"], or τερέω [a form of the same verb], imply that its action is to bore, not to break. The term lithotripsy, from λίθος and τριβω, τριψις, will, I think, be acknowledged as more appropriate to the nature of the operation." A year later Heurteloup published a description of the operation in French (Lithotripsie. Mémoires sur la lithotripsie par percussion, Paris, 1833).