ABSTRACT
Medical terminology has often gleaned ideas from the imaginativeness of human beings. The literary word gave rise to Lasthénie de Ferjol’s syndrome (Bernard, Najean, Alby, & Rain, 1967; Olry & Haines, 2002 for review), Munchausen’s syndrome (Asher, 1951; Olry, 2002 for review), Munchausen syndrome by proxy (Meadow, 1977; Olry & Haines, 2006b for review), among others. Mythology also supplied medicine with many examples of mental pathologies or behavioral disorders, such as Elpenor’s syndrome (Logre, 1961; Olry & Haines, 2006a for review), Jocasta’s complex (Garnier & Delamare, 2000, p. 447), Empedocel’s syndrome (Olry, 2006), Electra’s complex (Manuila, Manuila, Nicole, & Lambert, 1981), and the Ondine curse (Garnier & Delamare, 2000, p. 585). However, the most celebrated involvement of mythology in medical terminology is undisputably the Oedipus complex (Davis, 1993; Gilman, 1997; Green, 1969).
