There are several names in medicine which originated from animals names. The genes in humans have been named after some of the animals like mice, drosophila, and hedgehog [5].

An example for a term related to animal is ‘’Elephant man syndrome’’.

Sir Frederick Treves first showed Joseph Merrick, (Fig. 1), the famous Elephant Man, to the Pathological Society of London in 1884. A man with gigantic growth, thought to have neurofibromatosis or Proteus syndrome [5,6].

Researchers who named the medical things are also influenced by public characters or stories. So it is not strange to find some medical terms based on non-medical things.

For example; Kabuki syndrome, which is a congenital disorder with multiple anomalies and intellectual disability. It is named Kabuki Syndrome because of the facial resemblance to Kabuki actor’s mask [7], (Fig. 2). Kabuki is a Japanese traditional theatrical form.

Another example for the above subheading is Rapunzel syndrome, which is a gastric trichobezoar with a tail extending up to the jejunum, ileum, or ileocecal junction [8]. It was first described by Vaughan et al. in 1968 It is named after the eponymous heroine of a German fairy tale written by the Grimm Brothers in 1812 about a 12-year-old princess imprisoned by a witch in a tall tower with neither stairs nor doors for many years; the princess lowered her long hair to the ground from her window, allowing a young prince to climb up and rescue her [8] (Fig. 3).

Rarely a disease may be named after something related to the paients. For example; Ambras syndrome (AS), which is a form of hereditary, generalized hypertrichosis. The Ambras name was given because the family portraits of Gonzales (The first recorded case of AS) were discovered in Ambras castle, (located in Austria) amongst an art collection started by the archduke Ferdinand II (1529-1595) [9].

Petrus Gonzales (Fig. 4) was born in the Canary Islands in 1556. Out of curiosity, Petrus was brought to France where he was presented as a gift to the nobles. He subsequently produced offspring with similar AS features. Currently, the same paintings of Gonzalez which were in Ambras castle, hang in the Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna [9].

Patients have been immortalized by having their names or initials incorporated; for example, B-K mole syndrome, where the letters B and K refer to the two patients in whom the condition was first described. The same is true of anti-Sm, anti-La, and anti-Ro antibodies, each of which is derived from letters of a patient’s name. In table1 [10-17], I listed selected medical terms in which the name of disease refers to the patient’s name.

Out of curiosity a reverse might happens, and a person might carry the name of the disease. This is what happened to Mary Mallon (1869-1938), (Fig. 6), who was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. Mary Mallon was then best known as Typhoid Mary [18].