Eponyms are a longstanding tradition in western science and medicine. Being awarded an eponym is regarded as an honour: "eponymity, not anonymity, is the standard" (Merton R K, 1973). It is regarded as bad form to attempt to eponymise yourself. At a time when medicine lacked the tools to investigate the underlying causes of many Syndrome s, the eponym was a convenient mechanism for attaching a label to a disease. In order to freely discuss something, it must have a name.
In 1974, the US s, dictionaries and Style Guide s remain divided on this issue.
There is a trend away from the use of eponymous disease names towards a medical name that describes either the cause or the primary signs. Reasons for this include:
The name confers no information other than the historical.
There can be a Western bias to the choices.
History sometimes shows the credit should have gone to a different person.
Different countries may have different eponyms for the same disease.
Several eponyms may turn out to be the same disease (example: Amyloid Degeneration is also called Abercrombie's disease, '''Abercrombie's syndrome''', and '''Virchow's syndrome''').
Arguments for maintaining eponyms include:
The name may be more memorable and shorter than the medical one (the latter requiring abbreviation to its Acronym )
Sometimes the medical name proves to be incorrect.
The syndrome may have more than one cause, yet it remains useful to consider it as a whole.
It continues to give respect to a person who may otherwise have been forgotten.
