What’s in a Name? Hellenic Origins of Microbiological Nomenclature

Abstract

Our intention was to trace the origins of names that every microbiologist comes to pronounce or write down in her/his daily practice and, particularly, to elucidate the etymological debt of this medical field to the two great languages of classical antiquity, Greek and Latin. According to the system of binomial nomenclature established by Linnaeus in the 1750s to give a unique name to each species, consisting of two terms, the name of the genus and the name of the species, combinations were based on Greek and Latin. The two major cocci consist of a literally classical example. Streptococci, named so by Bilroth from the Greek word “στρεπτόν—strepton” (necklace), and staphylococci, baptised by Ogston from “staphyli—σταφύλι” (grape), were both so named due to their appearance under microscopy. Two well-known species of these genera bear Latin names denoting colour, greenish for S. viridans and golden for S. aureus. Other bacteria display the discovering scientist like, E. coli for Escherich, Brucella from Bruce, or Pasteurella from Louis Pasteur. Similar pathways also exist for viruses, even back to Hippocrates, like Herpesviruses from “έρπης—herpes” (creeping) or Arenaviruses from “arena—sand”, and fungi, as mycology itself originates from “μύκης—myces”, Greek for fungus, and Aspergillus from the verb “aspergo” (to sprinkle).