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I've never really thought about it before now, but is the name of a disease considered a proper noun, and thus, should the first letters be capitalized?

For example: Would it be "celiac disease" or "Celiac Disease"? I've seen it capitalized in some places and not in others.

animuson
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  • It is also Coeliac disease outside North America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease – Tristan Oct 03 '13 at 15:46
  • A distinct but related question about using articles with diseases: http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/82976/i-got-a-stomach-flu-or-i-got-the-stomach-f%E2%80%8C%E2%80%8Blu/82986#82986 – Adam May 27 '16 at 05:42

2 Answers2

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No, disease names are not proper nouns, although diseases named after people keep the capitalization of the person's name (Münchausen syndrome). The scientific (Latin) names of disease-causing organisms follow the standard rule of Genus species.

If you've seen "Celiac Disease", it's just because of an unfortunate tendency some People have to capitalize Random Nouns as if English were half German.

chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-
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    I thought English was half German. BTW hundreds of Years ago it was common to capitalize random Nouns in English. e.g. read William Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation. – Jay Oct 03 '13 at 17:11
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    @Jay Oh, a few centuries ago it was common to see most nouns capitalized; the Declaration of Independence and US Constitution, for example, use that style. But English has evolved over the years, and the capitalize-the-nouns rule went out a long time ago. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Oct 03 '13 at 17:21
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    @chrylis Indeed, unless your Ultimate Goal is to make things sound Very Serious on the Internet. – WendiKidd Oct 03 '13 at 17:46
  • I would attribute the capitalization of celiac or coeliac to ignorance; other than the condition, awareness of which has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade, few know the word or would ever use it in place of, say, abdominal. They thus assume it must be a name, like Alzheimer or Hodgkin. I wouldn't be surprised if phossy jaw or plantar fasciitis were also subject to frequent miscapitalization. – choster Oct 03 '13 at 18:48
  • @choster You're giving people too much credit; if they were actually thinking that way, you'd see Celiac disease. Instead, Disease is always capitalized in these sort of scenarios, leaving me confident that this is a case of Random Capitalization. – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Oct 03 '13 at 19:37
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    @chrylis When I see it capitalized, it's inevitably Celiac's Disease; note the genitive. – choster Oct 03 '13 at 22:11
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    @choster sigh – chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic- Oct 03 '13 at 22:53
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Diseases are not capitalized unless the name comes from the name of a scientist.For example rinderpest is not capitalized while Marek's disease is capitalized since this name comes from the researcher Marek. Similarly pathogenic organisms eg. anthrax bacteria are not capitalized. Of course, when we are writing the binomial name of the organism ( Bacillus anthracis) the genus name is capitalized. Too many people are writing this casually and young researchers are confused or learning wrong things.

Y Narasimha Reddy
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