In the many years I have lectured for the medical industry, the one word that representatives, managers, engineers, etc. usually do not master is “morbidity”.
In most cases when I ask for a definition of “morbidity” most in the audience try to guess and in the medical arena and medical devices industry guessing is not acceptable. So, I would like to ask those who follow my articles and posts to repost this information so that it is available for as many people as possible. By the way, the most common answer I receive is that "morbidity" means death...not so!!
The term “morbidity” arises from the Latin word morbus which means Ill, sick, or sickly. It has been in use in English for centuries and what today we call “pathology” used to be known as “morbid anatomy”. There are many terms in medical history that included the term “morbid” such as “morbus indecens” (venereal diseases); morbus gallicus (syphilis), “morbus sacer” (epilepsy, the sacred disease), etc.
To be simple, today we use the term “morbidity “to mean “complications”, As an example, when we use the term “postoperative morbidity” what we’re trying to say is simply “postoperative complications”. When you ask what is the morbidity associated with a certain treatment (a new medication, as an example) what we’re trying to say is what are the complications associated with that medication or treatment.
Now, the associated term “comorbidity” causes the same problems. Many think they know its meaning, but they are actually guessing, and it can lead to embarrassing conversations between a medical device representative and a surgeon or physician.
The term comorbidity is a portmanteau (French) word, that is, a word formed by the mixing of parts of two words. In this case, the components are COncommitant (meaning associated) and MORBIDITY, (meaning complications). Simple stated, comorbidity means “associated complications”. As a side note, do not add a hyphen, as in co-morbidity: this is wrong.
There are many portmanteau words in English, such as “brainiac”; “bromance”, “Brexit”, “fog”, etc. For additional portmanteau non-medical words follow this link.
Sources.
1. "The origin of Medical Terms" Skinner, AH 1970
2. "Medical Meanings - A glossary of Word Origins" Haubrich, WS. 1997