JULY 30, 2007

Big news today when supreme court chief justice John Roberts went down at his vacation home with a sudden unexpected seizure. Since I spent the first dozen years of my life really interested neurology, I checked up on the actual medical diagnosis of his condition.

Ruled: benign idiopathic seizure

Being the classically bored pre-medical student that I am, I bust out Stedman's Medical Dictionary to look up the proper definition of "idiopathic."

Denoting a disease of unknown cause. Less commonly referred to as idiopathetic.

Idiopathetic. Sometimes I love the english language. Only a term denoting an unanswerable question of diagnosis contains reference to both the words "idiot" and "pathetic."