Dermatotropic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. Having a preferential attraction to or effect on skin tissue and cells
2. Tending to localize in or exert its primary action upon the skin
3. Showing a natural affinity for and concentration in skin rather than other tissues

Etymology: "Dermatotropic" is a technical coinage built from two Greek elements. "Dermato-" comes from Greek "derma," meaning skin, and the combining form appears in many medical terms such as dermatology. "-tropic" comes from Greek "tropos," meaning turning or direction, and survives in words like heliotropic, where something turns toward the sun. Put together, the word describes something that is drawn to or acts upon the skin. In medicine and microbiology, the suffix "-tropic" is used to describe an agent that has a particular affinity for a given tissue or organ. A dermatotropic virus or parasite is one that targets skin, and the word is used to classify pathogens by where they tend to take hold in the body. The term belongs to the vocabulary of 20th-century medical science, assembled from classical parts to name a precise biological behaviour rather than inherited from ancient writers.