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Aetiology vs Pathology - What's the difference?

aetiology | pathology |

In medicine terms the difference between aetiology and pathology

is that aetiology is the study or investigation of the causes of disease; a scientific explanation for the origin of a disease while pathology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.

As nouns the difference between aetiology and pathology

is that aetiology is the establishment of a cause, origin, or reason for something while pathology is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.

aetiology

English

(wikipedia aetiology)

Alternative forms

* * etiology (American)

Noun

  • The establishment of a cause, origin, or reason for something.
  • * 1999 , Joyce Crick, translating Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams , I.c:
    • I do not know where the idea first arose of enlisting internal (subjective) excitations of the sensory organs as well as external sensory stimuli; but it is in fact done in all the more recent accounts of the aetiology of dreams .
  • The study of causes or causation.
  • (medicine) The study or investigation of the causes of disease; a scientific explanation for the origin of a disease.

    • Usage notes

    * Not to be confused with etymology.

    Derived terms

    * etiologic * etiological * etiologically * etiologist

    pathology

    English

    Noun

    (pathologies)
  • (medicine) The branch of medicine concerned with the study of the nature of disease and its causes, processes, development, and consequences.
  • The medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians.
    • The surgeon sent a specimen of the cyst to the pathology department for staining and analysis to determine its histologic subtype.
  • Pathosis: any deviation from a healthy or normal structure or function; abnormality; illness or malformation.

    • Derived terms

    * pathologist * anatomical pathology * chemical pathology * cytopathology * experimental pathology * forensic pathology * histopathology * plant pathology * psychopathology

    Related terms

    * pathologic * pathological * pathobiology * pathophysiology

    Usage notes

    * Some house style guides for medical publications avoid the "illness" sense of pathology'' (disease, state of ill health) and replace it with ''pathosis''. The rationale is that the ''-ology'' form should be reserved for the "study of disease" sense and for the medical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services (e.g., cytology, histology) to clinicians. This rationale drives similar usage preferences about ''etiology'' ("cause" sense versus "study of causes" sense), ''methodology'' ("methods" sense versus "study of methods" sense), and other ''-ology'' words. Not all such , because most physicians don't do so in their own speech (and the context makes clear the sense intended). Another limitation is that ''pathology'' meaning "illness" has an adjectival form (''pathologic''), but the corresponding adjectival form of ''pathosis'' (''pathotic'') is idiomatically missing from English (defective declension), so ''pathologic'' is obligate for both senses ("diseased" and "related to the study of disease"); this likely helps keep the "illness" sense of ''pathology'' in natural use (as the readily retrieved noun counterpart to ''pathologic in the "diseased" sense).