A History of English Language

A history of the english language 280
212. The Growth of Science.
The most striking thing about our present-day civilization is probably the part that
science has played in bringing it to pass. We have only to think of the progress that has
been made in medicine and the sciences auxiliary to it, such as bacteriology,
biochemistry, and the like, to realize the difference that marks off our own day from that
of only a few generations ago in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and cure of disease.
Or we may pause to reflect upon the relatively short period that separates the Wright
brothers, making history’s first powered and controlled airplane flight, from the landings
of astronauts on the moon, the operation of a space shuttle, and the voyages of spacecraft
past the outer planets of the solar system. In every field of science, pure and applied,
there has been need in the last two centuries for thousands of new terms. The great
majority of these are technical words known only to the specialist, but a certain number
of them in time become familiar to the layperson and pass into general use.
In the field of medicine this is particularly apparent. We speak familiarly of anemia,
appendicitis, arteriosclerosis, difftcult as the word is, of bronchitis, diphtheria, and
numerous other diseases and ailments. We use with some sense of their meaning words
like bacteriology, immunology, orthodontics, and the acronym AIDS (acquired immune
deficiency syndrome). We maintain clinics, administer an antitoxin or an anesthetic, and
vaccinate for smallpox. We have learned the names of drugs like aspirin, iodine, insulin,
morphine, and we acquire without effort the names of antibiotics, such as penicillin,
streptomycin, and a whole family of sulfa compounds. We speak of adenoids, endocrine
glands, and hormones and know the uses of the stethoscope, the EKG
(electrocardiogram), and the CAT scan (computerized axial tomography). We refer to the
combustion of food in the body as metabolism, distinguish between proteins and
carbohydrates, know that a dog can digest bones because he has certain enzymes or
digestive fluids in his stomach, and say that a person who has the idiosyncrasy of being
made ill by certain foods has an allergy. Cholesterol is now a part of everyone’s
vocabulary, and there is an awareness that some fats are polyunsaturated. All of these
words have come into use during the nineteenth and, in some cases, the twentieth
century.
In almost every other field of science the same story could be told. In the field of
electricity words like dynamo, commutator, alternating current, arc light have been in
the language since about 1870. Physics has made us familiar with terms like calorie,
electron, ionization, ultraviolet rays, quantum mechanics, and relativity, though we don’t
always have an exact idea of what they mean. The development of atomic energy and
nuclear weapons has given us radioactive, hydrogen bomb, chain reaction, fallout, and
meltdown. In recent years laser, superconducting supercollider, quasar, and pulsar have
come into common use; and black holes, quarks, the big bang model, and superstrings
have captured the popular imagination. Chemistry has contributed so many common
words that it is difficult to make a selection—alkali, benzine, creosote, cyanide,
formaldehyde, nitroglycerine, radium, to say nothing of such terms as biochemical,
petrochemical, and the like. The psychologist has taught us to speak of schizophrenia,
extrovert and introvert, behaviorism, inhibition, defense mechanism, inferiority complex,
bonding, and psychoanalysis. Originally scientific words and expressions such as ozone,
natural selection, stratosphere, DNA (for deoxyribonudeic acid) became familiar through