Idiopathy/Idiopathic

Abstract

Idiopathy, the noun, is defined (according to the OED) as 'a primary morbid state; not consequent upon or symptomatic of another disease.' For example, we may speak of the idiopathy of Alzheimer's disease. The more common adjectival form is idiopathic, applied for example to pulmonary fibrosis, cardiomyopathy, epilepsy, thrombocytopenia, or parkinsonism. Idiopathic was first recorded in English (OED) when William Simpson wrote in Hydrologia Chymica, or the Chymical Anatomy of Scarbrough and Other Spaws in Yorkshire (1669): 'If the diseases be idiopathick.' The neurologist Robert Bentley Todd, in The Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology (1835-1836), later stated: 'Disease...as it commences idiopathically within the vessel itself.' (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)