Cancer – How Important Is An Apostrophe?
September is National Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Awareness Month. It is also the month that Non-Hodgkin’s, Leukemia, all blood cancers, and childhood cancer are recognized.
Hodgkin’s Lymphoma is considered a “blood cancer.” It is also considered a childhood cancer, though it can happen at any age, but prevalently among teenagers and adolescents, most common among 15-19 year olds. I was twenty-two when I was diagnosed, and I am considered in that childhood range.
Then there is this oddity of information. Back in 1988, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease. Discovered by Thomas Hodgkin in 1832 when he reported enlargement of lymph nodes and spleens, he did not name the disease after himself. It was another physician by the name of Samuel Wilks, who in 1865 recognized Hodgkin’s earlier work, officially giving the name “Hodgkin’s Disease.”
It was in the later 1990’s that researchers established that the malignant Reed-Sternberg cells were usually developed from B lymphocytes. In other words, Hodgkin’s was no longer some sort of mysterious disease of the lymph nodes separate from other lymphomas. Hodgkin’s was actually a distinct type of lymphoma. And in 1997, at a WHO advisory meeting, debate occurred and Hodgkin’s Disease was changed to Hodgkin’s Lymphoma officially in 2001. It is only recently that I have referred to my Hodgkin’s as lymphoma.
And now, twenty-five years later, a new issue has come up with the name. It is small in stature, but it appears to matter to some, the apostrophe in the name “Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.” A fellow Hodgkin’s survivor (I am still using the apostrophe) pointed out, that it did not appear to be grammatically correct, as there was no “S” at the end of Hodgkin’s name, oops, just no getting away from that apostrophe. But historically “Hodgkin’s disease” literally meant the disease described by Hodgkin, so the possessive apostrophe was natural. But modern medical terminology increasingly avoids possessive eponyms (I wonder how others with other major illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Parkinson’s syndrome care about this grammatical issue). Hodgkin did not “own” the lymphoma, but his name is the identifying label. Thus, the preferred modern wording today is “Hodgkin Lymphoma”, no apostrophe, no “s”, which honestly does not even sound right.
So now, I have lived long enough to see three different eras of Hodgkin’s (I am forever going to use the apostrophe, though I have resigned myself to using “lymphoma”). There is the Hodgkin’s Disease era, the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma era, and now the Hodgkin Lymphoma era.
And that is the irony. Thomas Hodgkin himself never called it Hodgkin’s disease. He knew he had a major discovery. He just probably never thought that punctuation would become a major part of that discovery.
And to be clear, I am a 37 year survivor of Hodgkin’s Disease.
Paul's Heart 