And that meant, for centuries, a medical practitioner. And but, you know, it makes sense that from physic, we would get the word physician. There are some professorships of physic at medical schools to this very day. In around 1200, 1212 to be exact the Anglo-Normans appropriated these words for English to coin the world physic: P-H-Y-S-I-C.Р”Р„nd even though its rarely used today, physic can still be found in any English dictionary to define medicine or remedy?Р”Р‡LATOW: Yeah, you see used an old English textbooks and things like that. And all of these words mean treatment or remedy. It really it comes from we have to start with the Latin word physicum or physicus, and later the French word physic. So the really precise way to call for medical attention would be to ask for a physician. But the word doctor is actually a Latin word and later a French one, meaning anyone whos a teacher - usually of law, theology, philosophy, as well as medicine for a learned profession. MARKEL: Well, you know, its funny its almost cliche when youre in a crowded theater and someone takes ill, someone will say, is there a doctor in the house. MARKEL: Well, the word today is physician.

Professor HOWARD MARKEL (Medicine, University of Michigan): Hello, Ira. And hes also director of the Center for the History of Medicine there. That means its time for this months episode of Science Diction, where talk about the origin of science words, with my guest, Howard Markel, professor of the history of medicine, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. With these 26 magic symbols, however, millions of words are written every day. Unidentified Man: The alphabet has only 26 letters.

Physicus in latin alphabet