Etiology is the study of causation or origins, derived from the Greek word aitiología, meaning "giving a reason for." It explores the causes or reasons behind how things function and is widely applied in fields such as medicine, philosophy, physics, biology, and theology. Historically, when phenomena were misunderstood, myths served as etiologies or origin myths to explain natural and social origins. For example, Virgil's Aeneid is a national myth glorifying the origins of the Roman Empire, while many religions use creation myths to explain the world's beginnings.
Medicine
Main article: Cause (medicine)
In medicine, the etiology of an illness or condition refers to the frequent studies to determine one or more factors that come together to cause the illness. Relatedly, when disease is widespread, epidemiological studies investigate what associated factors, such as location, sex, exposure to chemicals, and many others, make a population more or less likely to have an illness, condition, or disease, thus helping determine its etiology. Sometimes determining etiology is an imprecise process. In the past, the etiology of a common sailor's disease, scurvy, was long unknown. When large, ocean-going ships were built, sailors began to put to sea for long periods of time, and often lacked fresh fruit and vegetables. Without knowing the precise cause, Captain James Cook suspected scurvy was caused by the lack of vegetables in the diet. Based on his suspicion, he forced his crew to eat sauerkraut, a cabbage preparation, every day, and based upon the positive outcomes, he inferred that it prevented scurvy, even though he did not know precisely why. It took about another two hundred years to discover the precise etiology: the lack of vitamin C in a sailor's diet.
The following are examples of intrinsic factors:
- Inherited conditions, or conditions that are passed down to you from your parents. An example of this is hemophilia, a disorder that leads to excessive bleeding.
- Metabolic and endocrine, or hormone, disorders. These are abnormalities in the chemical signaling and interaction in the body. For example, Diabetes mellitus is an endocrine disease that causes high blood sugar.
- Neoplastic disorders or cancer where the cells of the body grow out of control.
- Problems with immunity, such as allergies, which are an overreaction of the immune system.3
Mythology
Main article: Origin myth
An etiological myth, or origin myth, is a myth intended to explain the origins of cult practices, natural phenomena, proper names and the like. For example, the name Delphi and its associated deity, Apollon Delphinios, are explained in the Homeric Hymn which tells of how Apollo, in the shape of a dolphin (delphis), propelled Cretans over the seas to make them his priests. While Delphi is actually related to the word delphus ('womb'), many etiological myths are similarly based on folk etymology (the term Amazon, for example). In the Aeneid (published c. 17 BC), Virgil claims the descent of Augustus Caesar's Julian clan from the hero Aeneas through his son Ascanius, also called Iulus. The story of Prometheus' sacrifice trick at Mecone in Hesiod's Theogony relates how Prometheus tricked Zeus into choosing the bones and fat of the first sacrificial animal rather than the meat to justify why, after a sacrifice, the Greeks offered the bones wrapped in fat to the gods while keeping the meat for themselves. In Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe, the origin of the color of mulberries is explained, as the white berries become stained red from the blood gushing forth from their double suicide.
See also
- Backstory
- Bradford Hill criteria
- Correlation does not imply causation
- Creation myth
- Just-so story
- Just So Stories
- Pathology
- Pourquoi story
- Problem of causation
- Involution (esoterism)
External links
- The dictionary definition of etiology at Wiktionary
References
"aetiology". Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2002. ISBN 0-19-521942-2. 0-19-521942-2 ↩
"etiology". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins. https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=etiology ↩
"Etiology of Disease: Definition & Example - Video & Lesson Transcript". https://study.com/academy/lesson/etiology-of-disease-definition-example.html ↩