When delving into the world of epidemiology etymology through an infographic, one word that often gets overlooked is “herpes”. First appearing in Bartholomeus Anglicus’ 1398 encyclopedia “On the Order of Things”, the term was capitalized and held a definition similar to what we understand today. The Latin root of “herpes” encompassed various inflammatory skin conditions, with its origin traced back to the Greek word “herpein” meaning “creeping”. This same root also gave rise to “herpetology”, the study of snakes, as the Greek word for “snake” literally meant “creeping thing”. Furthermore, the word “serpent” can be linked back to “herpein”, as the Greek ‘h’ corresponds to the Latin ‘s’ through their development from Proto-Indo-European ‘s’. Ultimately, this journey leads us to the Proto-Indo-European root “serp”, signifying “creep” or “crawl”.
