Why do we call it that? Backstories of seven disease names

Diseases get their names from a variety of sources — from Latin or Greek root words, from place names, from the clinician who discovered them, or a well-known patient who had them.

But we throw disease names around so commonly these days that many of the decades- or centuries-old origins are long forgotten or overshadowed by their modern meaning.

Here are seven diseases with interesting stories behind their names. Have your own curious medical etymology? Leave it in the comments!

1. Listeria

After E. G. D. Murray first isolated Bacterium monocytogenes in 1924, he proposed naming it Lister after a British surgeon who had died a dozen