autopathy
|au-top-a-thy|
/ɔːˈtɒpəθi/
self + disease / self-derived treatment
Etymology
'autopathy' originates from Greek, specifically the elements 'autos' and 'pathos', where 'autos' meant 'self' and 'pathos' meant 'suffering' or 'disease'.
'autopathy' was formed in modern medical/New Latin usage (compare New Latin 'autopathia') from Greek roots and was adopted into English medical terminology as 'autopathy'.
Initially formed from roots meaning 'self-suffering' or 'self-disease'; over time the term has been applied more narrowly in medicine to refer to treatments using a patient's own biological material (autologous therapy) and, in some older uses, to disease originating within the individual.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a medical or therapeutic practice in which material derived from the patient (for example, blood, serum, or tissue) is used to treat that same patient; an autologous treatment.
The clinic offered autopathy by injecting the patient's own serum as part of an experimental protocol.
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Noun 2
a rare/obsolete sense: a disease or pathological condition originating within the individual (self-caused or endogenous disease).
Some older medical texts used autopathy to describe illnesses thought to arise from within the patient's own body.
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Last updated: 2025/11/27 13:40