By Katie Brooks
September 2007
Chambers Harrap Ltd
ISBN: 9780550103499
213 pages
$29.50 Paperback
Classical Roots for Medics is the perfect book for medical students, nurses, medical secretaries and anyone else who needs to get to grips with difficult medical terminology but wants to find a better way than memorizing word lists. It has entries for all the core Greek and Latin prefixes, suffixes and terms that make up so much medical vocabulary: once students are familiar with these, they find it easier to break down terms, which in turn helps with learning the words and working out what unfamiliar terms mean.
The A–Z format makes it easy to look up any word or affix without having to know which part of the body it relates to, and, unlike a medical dictionary, the entries give plural forms, opposites and Greek and Latin equivalents, and highlight easily confused words. So if you’re not sure of the difference between humeral and humoral, need to know if that artery is brachial, branchial or bronchial, or wonder why hydrocephalus is spelt with a ‘y’ but hidropoiesis with an ‘i’, then this book is for you.