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It is obvious that the meaning of Orthopedics is “bone department” (orthopedics), and all translations as plastic surgery are incorrect translations. This is a specialized medical term, derived from Greek vocabulary. The root of the mistake comes from the root word ortho, which means “corrective” or “shaping”, so if one does not understand the origin of this term, one easily mistranslates it.
In 1741, French doctor Nicolas Andry wrote a book titled Orthopédie, which was written for parents. It introduced some human anatomy, the structure and growth theory of muscles, and instructions on correcting deformities. This word is composed of two Greek words. The first part, ortho, means “straight” or “corrective”. Pédie comes from ped, meaning “child”. So combined, it means correcting deformities in children. Therefore, Andry intended to use this book to introduce and guide how to prevent and correct deformities in children. In 1743, this book was translated into English with the title Orthopædia. As the name suggests, this book initially focused on the correction of orthopedic deformities in children, but since orthopedic issues span a person’s entire life, the term gradually came to mean orthopedics in general.
The evolution of this word is Orthopædia to Orthopædics (æ) to the current two spellings Orthopaedics / Orthopedics, both acceptable. The æ is a Latin letter from Old English. During its evolution, changing it to ae or e is both correct and common. Therefore, many medical terms containing “ae” also have an alternative spelling with just “e”, such as Pediatrics/Paediatrics (where “ped” is the root meaning child), Haematology/Hematology, Gynaecology/Gynecology, etc.
Though Andry’s book was very famous at the time, the term Orthopaedics itself became even more widely known and influential, directly representing the field of orthopedics. Along with this term, the cover image of the book has been passed down. It depicts a bent sapling being held straight by a straight piece of wood for correction. This tree is called the Andry Tree, which has been adopted by orthopedic associations around the world as their logo.
The root “Ortho” in medicine not only forms the term Orthopaedics but also forms a branch of dentistry called Orthodontics (“odon” is the Greek root meaning “tooth”), a specialty responsible for correcting dental deformities. “Odon” evolved into “dent” and led to many words such as dentist, dentistry, dentate (having teeth/toothlike), and dentifrice (toothpaste). Other sub-disciplines of dentistry also generally involve the root odon, which will not be further elaborated here.
The root “Ped,” besides forming the mentioned discipline of Pediatrics, also forms another discipline, Pedagogy (where “ag-” means leading, so leading children is the meaning of education). Other words formed with the ped root include: pedophilia, pedocentrism (child-centered ideology), pedagogue (a person fond of teaching), and so on.
When dealing with the root ped, it is important to note that this root has two other meanings: one is foot, as in pedestrian, pedometer (step counter), centipede (literally “100 feet”); the other is soil, as in Pedology (soil science).