Hodges F M
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford, UK.
World J Urol. 1999 Jun;17(3):133-6. doi: 10.1007/s003450050120.
The medical term phimosis has been in use since antiquity, but in contrast to the imprecise definition of the term that is characteristic of nineteenth-century and some controversial modern medical writing. Greek and Roman medical writers imbued it with a clinically precise definition. Using the tools of the history of medicine, an analysis of the medical writings of antiquity reveals that phimosis was defined exclusively as a rare, inflammatory or cicatricial stricture of the preputial orifice consequent to a true pathological condition rather than a disease process in itself. Putative associations between phimosis and diseases such as urinary tract infections or cancer were not made in antiquity and are reflections of modern, geographically isolated social anxieties. The modern European scientific conceptualisation of phimosis, however, represents a return to the precise terminology and conservative therapeutic approach characteristic of Greek and Roman medicine.
医学术语“包茎”自古代就已使用，但与19世纪及一些有争议的现代医学著作中该术语不精确的定义形成对比的是，希腊和罗马医学作家赋予了它精确的临床定义。运用医学史的研究方法，对古代医学著作的分析表明，包茎仅被定义为因真正的病理状况导致的包皮口罕见的炎性或瘢痕性狭窄，而非其本身就是一种疾病过程。古代并未将包茎与诸如尿路感染或癌症等疾病联系起来，这些联系反映的是现代、地域孤立的社会焦虑。然而，现代欧洲对包茎的科学概念化则回归到了希腊和罗马医学所特有的精确术语和保守治疗方法。
