Chemotherapies

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A range of treatments using chemical substances to combat diseases, particularly cancer, by destroying or inhibiting the growth of cells
2. Various medical interventions that involve the administration of drugs to eradicate or control malignant cells and alleviate symptoms
3. Therapeutic procedures employing chemicals aimed at treating serious ailments, predominantly cancers, by targeting rapidly dividing cells in the body

Etymology: Paul Ehrlich, the German physician, is usually credited with the idea that chemicals could be aimed at disease-causing organisms, and his early work in the 1900s laid groundwork for what later became chemotherapy. The word itself is more modern and more hybrid than its sound suggests: "chemo-" comes from "chemistry," which traces back through New Latin "chēmīa" to Medieval Latin "alchēmia," and that in turn came from Arabic "al-kīmiyāʔ," borrowed from Greek "khumeia," a term for the art of transmuting metals. The second half, "therapy," takes a different route. It goes back to ancient Greek "therapeia," meaning attendance or healing service, from "therapeuō," to serve or attend to. It entered English through New Latin "therapia" and was long used in medicine and religion before becoming a general term for treatment. Joined together, the two halves produced a term combining an alchemical root with a Greek word for care, and the plural "chemotherapies" simply refers to the separate treatment approaches that the word covers.