Pathology

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milan2003_07

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Hello everyone,

Please have a look at the following sentence:

"A large amount of data have to be analyzed by medical experts, if a pathology is unknown in advance"

In the sentence I've used the word "pathology" in the meaning of a quite serious disorder when something is wrong with an organ or some part of a person's body. For instance, if a person was born with a diseased liver, he is said to have a liver pathology. Am I using the word "pathology" correctly in my examples?

I'm asking because "pathology" also has another meaning as a science studying various disorders in a human body and actually there're many more links on the Internet for this meaning than for the meaning I' was wondering about.

Many thanks
 

BobK

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Do you mean unknown (to medical science) or undiagnosed? The word 'pathology' suggests the former.

There still exist people who insist the the word 'data' is plural; and you may be one of them. That's fine - but an amount of anything is singular.

b
 

BobK

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Do you mean unknown (to medical science) or undiagnosed? The word 'pathology' suggests the former.

There still exist people who insist the the word 'data' is plural; and you may be one of them. That's fine - but an amount of anything is singular.

b
 

milan2003_07

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Do you mean unknown (to medical science) or undiagnosed? The word 'pathology' suggests the former.

There still exist people who insist the the word 'data' is plural; and you may be one of them. That's fine - but an amount of anything is singular.

b

Thanks, Bobk.

Right, I'm one of those who think that "data" is plural because "datum" is singular. In formal technical writing I encounter both forms of auxiliary verbs with data. Concerning "amount", I know, of course, that it's singular, but here I thought that we had to use "have" because of "data". Anyway, I've realized my mistake now.

Regarding my question, I actually mean neither unknown nor undiagnosed. Of course, a pathology can be either, but doesn't have to be so, I think. Saying a pathology, I just mean a condition when there're some organic problems with an organ: for example, a person's liver is damaged because of intense alchologol consumption or a person's heart is bad because of smoking. Pathology is a condition, as far as I understand. This condition can be treated by conservative methods, but sometimes requires surgery.

Am I right?
 

BobK

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I think so, but you should wait for a view from the medical community. Ray...?

In supoort of our view, there is the fact that many hospitals have a 'Pathology' department, where they deal with severe disorders of the sort that you're talking about.

b

PS Oh, and you really don't need to tell me about Latin;-)
 
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