Possessive forms of names of eponymous traits (e.g., Alport's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, Huntington's chorea or disease) are of long-standing and continue to be preferred by physicians. The nominal forms (e.g., the Alport syndrome, the Alzheimer disease, the Huntington disease), however, have ruled the genetics literature for at least 25 years.
Note: I compiled/composted this with occasional reference to Alport syndrome or hereditary nephritis, with many thanks to Microsoft Bookshelf 1994 and to Dante Alighieri but without thosedamnedillegibleitalics.
God knows when
And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
(Genesis 2:19, King James Version)
Early 1100's
Nulla rosa est.
(Pierre Abelard, see Eco 1980, 1983)
1100's
...stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
(Bernard of Morlay, De contemptu mundi. See Eco 1980, 1983)
ca . 1564
Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?....
What's in a name?
That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
(William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene ii, lines 23-43)
1851
Caro nome!
(Guiseppe Verdi, Rigoletto)
1854
If the fairest features of the landscape are to be named after men, let them be the noblest and worthiest men alone.
(Henry David Thoreau, Walden, "The Ponds")
1872
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
(Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, ch. 6)
1882
[Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate.] I desire to narrate a singular experience of family inheritance illustrating the natural history of Bright's disease of the kidney extending through three generations.
(Dante, Inferno: Canto III, verse 3, line 3; Joseph Kidd, The inheritance of Bright's disease of the kidney, Practitioner 29:104-114)
1891
It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything..... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
(Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lord Henry in ch. 17)
1901
[A symptom of that which we call Alport('s) syndrome was] Three Cases of Recurrent Haematuria occurring in One Family.
(W. H. W. Attlee, St. Bartholomew's Hospital Journal 9:41-42, December)
1902
[Covering all bases, a symptom of that which we call Alport('s) syndrome was] "Idiopathic," or Congenital, Hereditary and Family Haematuria.
(Leonard G. Guthrie, Lancet 1:1243-1246, May 3)
1908
I don't like your miserable lonely single "front name." It is so limited, so meagre; it has no versatility; it is weighted down with the sense of responsibility; it is worn threadbare with much use; it is as bad as having only one jacket and one hat; it is like having only one...blood relation in the world. Never set a child afloat on the flat sea of life with only one sail to catch the wind. I am called Bertie, Bert, David, Herbert, Billy, William and Dick; I am a full-rigged schooner; I have a wardrobe as complete as the man's-about-town.
(D. H. Lawrence, Letter published in James T. Boulton, ed., The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, vol.1, 1979)
1913
Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
(Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily)
1912, 1915, and 1923
[That which we call Alport('s) syndrome was, comprehensively,] Hereditary Familial Congenital Haemorrhagic Nephritis.
(George Kendall and Arthur F. Hertz, Guy's Hospital Report 66:137-141; Arthur F. Hertz, Medical Chronicle 213-217, January; Arthur F. Hurst [née Hertz, obliged by WWI to anglicize], Guy's Hospital Report 73:368-370)
1924
[That which we call Alport('s) syndrome was then curtailed to] Hereditary and Familial Nephritis.
(J. Eason et al., Lancet ii: 639-646, September 27)
1927
[That which we call Alport('s) syndrome was again, let us hope for the final time in print, full-blown as] Hereditary Familial Congenital Haemorrhagic Nephritis.
(A. Cecil Alport, British Medical Journal i:504-506, 19 March. Alport first noted the association of hereditary hearing loss with hereditary nephritis. He also libelled berries, asparagus, and claret for exacerbating hematuria.)
1930's?
[Virginia Woolf has] an impressive name...she married her wolfish husband purely in order to change her name. Virginia Stephens is not a name for an exploratory authoress....I shall write a book some day about the appropriateness of names. Geoffrey Chaucher has a ribald ring, as is proper and correct, and Alexander Pope was inevitably Alexander Pope. Colley Cibber was a silly little man without much elegance and Shelley was very Percy and very Bysshe.
(James Joyce, Quotation in Frederic Prokosch, Voices: A Memoir, "At Sylvia's," 1983)
1951
[Yet another departure for what we call Alport('s) syndrome was the misnomer] Hereditary Interstitial Pyelonephritis.
(Gerald T. Perkoff et al., Archives of Internal Medicine 88:191-200, August)
1956
[antejaunt]
Gully Foyle is my name,
Terra is my nation,
Deep space is my dwelling place
And death my destination.
[postjaunt]
Gully Foyle is my name,
Terra is my nation,
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.
(Alfred Bester, The Stars My Destination)
1958
[Retreat to] Hereditary Chronic Nephritis.
(Gerald T. Perkoff et al., Archives of Internal Medicine 102:733-746, November)
1961
I suggest therefore that the syndrome [in modern terms of hereditary, progressive glomerulonephritis and sensorineural hearing loss] should in future be referred to as "Alport's syndrome." [E quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle.]
(D. A. J. Williamson, Alport's syndrome of hereditary nephritis with deafness, Lancet, 1321-1323, 16 December; Dante, Inferno: Canto XXXIV, last line)
1964
The name of a man is a numbing blow from which he never recovers.
(Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, ch. 2)
1966
In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.
(Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Speech, Washington, D.C., 26 March)
1970
Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry they are untranslatable.
(W. H. Auden, A Certain World, "Names, Proper")
1971
The nonpossessive form of eponyms was recommended....
(Current Medical Information and Terminology. See McKusick).
1977
To name oneself is the first act of both the poet and the revolutionary. When we take away the right to an individual name, we symbolically take away the right to be an individual. Immigration officials did this to refugees; husbands routinely do it to wives.
(Erica Jong, How to Save Your Own Life, "My Posthumous Life..." Epigraph)
1980, 1983
Citing Abelard to Z, Umberto Eco in his delightful 1983 postscript, Postille a Il nome della rosa, elaborated [34 pages] on the title and meaning of Il nome della rosa/The Name of the Rose (1980.
1986
McKusick recapitulates geneticists' prejudices for the n-th time and in stupefying detail. This is humorous only in its ponderosity and opacity.
1986
The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
(Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon, Introduction, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later")
1988
Names, once they are in common use, quickly become mere sounds, their etymology being buried, like so many of the earth's marvels, beneath the dust of habit.
(Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses, "Ayesha")
1991
We don't know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don't understand our name at all, we don't know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.
(Milan Kundera, Agnes in Immortality, pt. 1, ch. 7)
1996
MM: ...need for a Miss Manners?
Judith Martin: When I first went to work...[at the Washington Post], I had to answer the phone in the women's section. All day long people called with questions like "What do I wear to an afternoon wedding?" In due course I was promoted to reporter covering things like diplomatic and White House parties, but generations of copy kids continued to come over with the same questions. Finally I thought, Those people have been on hold for too long. So I made myself Miss Manners. It was like Napoleon: You crown yourself because nobody else can do it.
(MM Interview - Judith Martin, Modern Maturity, March-April, pp 56-63)
1996
Rose, novel, darker than floral mystery, laced with arsenic and firedamp.
(Martin Cruz Smith, Rose, Random House, ISBN 0-679-4266I-2)
8/31/1999
Alport syndrome's my disease,
I'll call it whate'er I please.
(Curtis L. Atkin, Parthian Shot)