hormone

Term : hormone

Origin: Anc Greek  ορμή/orme(=to rush, to set in motion)

Coined: by Hippocrates to denote a vital principle (ca. 460 BC – ca. 370 BC) eg in the famous Hippocratic Treatise "Sacred Disease" it is mentioned that the corruption of the brain is caused by the phlegm and the bile ... when they rush (ορμήσουν/ormisoun) to the brain from the rest of the body by way of the veins.  

 In modern medical terminology the term “hormone” was coined by Ernest Henry Starling (1866-1927) in his Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in June 1905 (The Lancet" 1905) who reported his discovery of a substance made by glands in the small intestine that stimulated pancreatic secretion (secretin). Starling in these lectures  states the following: "These chemical messengers, however, or (from ορμάω=I excite or arouse), as we might call them, have to be carried from the organ where they are produced to the organ which they affect by means of the blood stream and the continually recurring physiological needs of the organism must determine their repeated production and circulation through the body".

 Definition:

Any chemical substance, usually a peptide or steroid, produced  by one tissue  of a multicellular organisms (including plants) and conveyed the bloodstream  to another to control and regulate the activity of certain cells or organs.

comments:

Starling EH, 1905 The Chemical Correlation of the functions of the body, Lecture I. The Lancet 2: 339-341.

Starling EH, 1905 The Chemical Correlation of the functions of the body, Lecture II. The Lancet 2: 423-425.

Starling EH, 1905 The Chemical Correlation of the functions of the body, Lecture III. The Lancet 2: 501-503.

Starling EH, 1905 The Chemical Correlation of the functions of the body, Lecture IV. The Lancet 2: 579-583