!!! stuck in spell !!!

Question

Hi friends,I had a queer sickness; I don't even know how to spell its name. :-) None of the doctors I approached to also didn't know how to spell it. Well, from how they sound, the word should be spelt as either "ballspasis", "ballspacis", "bellspasis" or "bellspacis". But since no dictionary has any of the above, I must have been goofed off in spelling it.Symptoms of this disease (clues):This disease affects either part of our face, and as a result it paralyses that part of our face. Doctors say it happens usually because the vein for that part of our face becomes weak for a while. They also said that I would recuperate from it with in a week and that the disease had no medicine but to wait for its gradual withdrawal. And now, after two weeks, although my body has recovered from it, my mind is restless grappling with dictionaries for the spelling.Hope anyone of A.U.E.-wordsmiths can help me.Shine.Not only passionate, but also serious about words.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Hi friends, I had a queer sickness; I don't even know how to spell its name. :-) None of the ... dictionaries for the spelling. Hope anyone of A.U.E.-wordsmiths can help me. Shine. Not only passionate, but also serious about words.[/nq]
It sounds like you are describing Bell's Palsy. See: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/health and medical/disorders/bells doc.htm for additional information.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hi friends, I had a queer sickness; I don't even know how to spell its name. :-) None of the ... recovered from it, my mind is restless grappling with dictionaries for the spelling. Hope anyone of A.U.E.-wordsmiths can help me.[/nq]
"Some expressional asymmetry issues".

Ross Howard

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Hi friends, I had a queer sickness; I don't even know how to spell its name. :-) None of the ... or "bellspacis". But since no dictionary has any of the above, I must have been goofed off in spelling it.[/nq]
"None of the doctors I approached to
also didn't know how to spell it."
(which would be a bit better if you wrote it this way:

"None of the doctors I approached knew how to spell it either.")

Most doctors should be able to spell "Bell's Palsy" even if English is not their first language. Would you mind telling us in which country this whole problem occured and, if it's not immediately obvious, what these doctors' first (native) language is?
Just curious.

Christopher ('CJ')
(Change 3032 to 77 for e-mail)

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[nq:2]Hi friends, I had a queer sickness; I don't even ... above, I must have been goofed off in spelling it.[/nq]
[nq:1]"None of the doctors I approached to also didn't know how to spell it." (which would be a bit better ... in which country this whole problem occured and, if it's not immediately obvious, what these doctors' first (native) language is?[/nq]
Given the poster's skill level in English, my assumption is that he meant that the doctors didn't spell it. Since "Bell's" is going to be the same in any language, there's little likelihood that "couldn't" is what the poster mean. There may be another word for "palsy" in Shine's native language.

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[nq:1]Most doctors should be able to spell "Bell's Palsy" even if English is not their first language.[/nq]
Why, if that's not its name in their first language? Spanish doctors, for example, would know it as prosopoplejia* or simply *parálisis facial.

Ross Howard

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[nq:2]Most doctors should be able to spell "Bell's Palsy" even if English is not their first language.[/nq]
[nq:1]Why, if that's not its name in their first language? Spanish doctors, for example, would know it as prosopoplejia* or simply *parálisis facial.[/nq]
Yes, but is it not ALSO known as "Parálisis de Bell"?

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/ency/article/000773.htm

I take your point, though, Ross, but it seems to me that a doctor would have read medical journals, reports, papers etc. in which he or she would at least have come across the English name. Doctors, being the reasonably well- educated people that (Hi, Tony!*) they are, would have at least some idea how to spell 'Bell' even if they couldn't quite manage 'Palsy', no matter what their first language happened to be. At least I would have thought so.
I would be interested in Franke's take on this too, being involved in medical editing as he is, though I know he's tied up in a difficult family situation at the moment, unfortunately.

Christopher ('CJ')
(Change 3032 to 7777 for e-mail)
*Yes, Tony I know this isn't quite the same "people that" that you're famous for using! :-)

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[nq:2]"None of the doctors I approached to also didn't know ... not immediately obvious, what these doctors' first (native) language is?[/nq]
[nq:1]Given the poster's skill level in English, my assumption is that he meant that the doctors didn't spell it. Since "Bell's" is going to be the same in any language, there's little likelihood that "couldn't" is what the poster mean.[/nq]
Perhaps, but the poster did seem to be very specific about the doctors not knowing how to spell it.
[nq:1]There may be another word for "palsy" in Shine's native language.[/nq]
Yes, as Ross has also pointed out. See my reply to his post.

Christopher ('CJ')
(Change 3032 to 77 for e-mail)

Usenet · Answer

Christopher Johnson wrote on 07 Aug 2004:
[nq:1]Yes, but is it not ALSO known as "Parálisis de Bell"? http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/spanish/ency/article/000773.htm[/nq]
Yes, but this is a medical encyclopedia article that defines the condition, its treatment, its symptoms, etc. It's not a medical article. The encyclopedia is not for Spanish-speaking doctors only. It's a public service for everyone in the world who speaks Spanish and is able to access PubMed in Spanish.
[nq:1]I take your point, though, Ross, but it seems to me that a doctor would have read medical journals, reports, ... couldn't quite manage 'Palsy', no matter what their first language happened to be. At least I would have thought so.[/nq]
Yes, and the older doctors I met in Japan were also able to read German fluently because before English was the language of medicine, German was.
[nq:1]I would be interested in Franke's take on this too, being involved in medical editing as he is, though I know he's tied up in a difficult family situation at the moment, unfortunately.[/nq]
Franke's take is to agree with CJ on this. Why? Every Asian doctor well-trained in Western medicine has to be able to read and write English. Many write English poorly, of course, but they have to be able to read English because almost all important medical articles about Western medicine are published in English in English-language journals. Even articles about Chinese medicine are published in US English-language journals devoted to Chinese and other traditional modes of medicine. Those written and published in languages other than English have to have an English abstract if the authors want their paper cited in as many other papers on the subject as possible and listed in all the English medical abstracting services, eg PubMed (in English) and BioSys. In Canada, everything published in English has to have a French abstract, and vice versa.
While there are many medical journals in Europe, for example, that publish articles in languages other than English, the doctors there generally can read and write English. They have to be able to to get their MDs. And most of those who publish publish in English.

Oh, yes, there are articles that have no English abstracts in PubMed's listings, but even the doctors here in Taiwan who speak, read, and write Japanese, for example, are not going to bother looking for a PubMed-listed Japanese article without an English abstract in PubMed unless the article is also singled out as important or at least cited in numerous other papers in English. Medical articles in languages other than English are usually meant only for local consumption and this is certainly true of the medical articles written in and published in Chinese-language medical journals in Taiwan.While our local national university's medical library does subscribe to medical journals in Chinese and Japanese, the great majority of medical journals in the library are in English. If graduate students in the medical college cannot get one (beginning this year) or two articles published in an English-language medical journal, they cannot earn their PhD. If clinical practitioners in the university hospital cannot publish at least one article a year in an English- language medical journal, they will not keep their job.

If clinicians who teach medicine at the medical college cannot publish at least two articles per year in English-language jornals, they will not be promoted. Below(1) is one entry for a case report, a minor type of article, but not always unimportant, from PubMed. The doctors surely know the English name of the disease. Why did they publish their article in Spanish? I don't know. Maybe they don't need promotions or job security. Maybe they just didn't want to bother writing in English or paying to have their article translated or revised.
(1) http://tinyurl.com/499tl
An Otorrinolaringol Ibero Am. 2004;31(3):205-14.
(Facial nerve schwannomas. Report of a case)
(Article in Spanish)
Gancedo Fernandez S, Lorenzo Lorenzo A, Pardo Salgado E, Santidrian Hidalgo C.
Servicio de Otorrinolaringologia, Hospital do Meixoereiro, Vigo.

Facial nerve schwannomas are relatively uncommon lesions. The clinical features depend upon the localization and extent of the lesion. The most common presenting symptom is that of a slowly progressive facial nerve palsy, because of facial schwannoma usually are located near the geniculate ganglion. A case of facial schwannoma is reported: a woman presenting a sudden facial palsy did not respond to medical and rehabilitation treatment. First, a Bell's palsy was diagnosed and then the facial nerve schwannoma with imaging techniques. A review about facial nerve schwannomas is reported.

PMID: 15259842 (PubMed - in process)

Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
For email, replace numbers with English alphabet.

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[nq:1]Christopher Johnson wrote on 07 Aug 2004:[/nq]
Yes !!!!
[nq:1]Why? Every Asian doctor well-trained in Western medicine has to be able to read and write English. Many write English ... facial nerve schwannoma with imaging techniques. A review about facial nerve schwannomas is reported. PMID: 15259842 (PubMed - in process)[/nq]
Thanks for this post, Franke. It was very informative and useful indeed.
I do hope we get to find out which country the OP is from.

Christopher ('CJ')
(Change 3032 to 7777 for e-mail)

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[nq:2]Most doctors should be able to spell "Bell's Palsy" even if English is not their first language.[/nq]
[nq:1]Why, if that's not its name in their first language? Spanish doctors, for example, would know it as prosopoplejia* or simply *parálisis facial.[/nq]
And in any case, Bell was obviously a gringo of some kind. No shrines for gringos, what?

!!! stuck in spell !!!

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