Pneumography

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The technique of recording the movements of the chest and lungs during breathing, usually with a device that traces a graph
2. A medical procedure that charts the rise and fall of the thorax as a person breathes, producing a written tracing of respiration
3. Measurement of respiratory motion through a record of chest expansion and contraction, often used to assess lung function

Etymology: "Pneumography" is a technical coinage built from two Greek elements. The first, "pneumo-", comes from Greek "pneumon", meaning lung, and by extension breath or air; the second, "-graphy", comes from "graphia", writing or recording, as in "photography" or "biography". Put together, the word names the recording of breathing movements, most often by a device that traces the rise and fall of the chest or abdomen onto paper or a screen. Because both parts are ancient, the word can look older than it is. Greek physicians had no use for it, since the apparatus it describes depends on modern instruments. It was assembled from classical building blocks in the modern scientific period, in the same way that doctors coined terms such as "electrocardiography" for their own tools.