©2007 Ethis Communications, Inc. The Ocular Surface ISSN: 1542-0124. Murube J. Collyrium: where does this word come from? 2007;5(4):264-268. he application of a collyrium is the most frequently used technique for the examination, diagnosis, and treatment of ocular surface diseases (Figure 1). The term appeared for the first time in Classical Greece as kollyrion. More than a millennium BC, Greece was composed of west Asia Minor, the Aegean islands, and the Balkan peninsula. In the VII and VI centuries BC, its colonization spread to southern Italy (Magna Graecia), Sicily, and the western Mediterranean. In the V century BC, after the Medan wars (Marathon, 490 BC, peace of Cimon, 449 BC), Greece was freed from Persian pressure and underwent large-scale military, commercial, and cultural development. Under the influence of Alexander the Great, Greece attained its greatest geographic expansion, stretching to the Indo River and to Egypt. The cultural inheritance of the Greeks was maintained permanently throughout the following ages, but curiously, the linguistic influence seeded in those times sprouted two millennia later, and currently Greek roots are the base of most neologisms. The Greeks introduced the term kollyrion to describe certain external, topically applied medicines. In Classical Greece, pastes for the eyes were known as nikarion and kollýra. Kollyra meant paste, and by extension, pastry (bread roll, bun). Probably it comes from kolla, meaning paste or glue, and the diminutive of collyra was collýrion. Some authors suggest other etymologies for collyrium. Stephanus Blancardus (1680)1 and Hurtado de Mendoza (1840)2 thought it came from kolýo (to avoid) and rheo (to run, to drip). Lavoisien (1781)3 thought it came from kolla (paste) and oyra (tail), because the ancient kollyria were kneaded to form a rat tail shape, not only for easy storage, but for use as unguents for the skin and the ocular surface, and as suppositories for the vagina, anus, urethra, nasal fossa, ear canal, and fistulas. In the Greek language, the suffix –ion was employed, among other uses, to form diminutives of masculine, feminine, and neuter substantive nouns. These nouns in their diminutive forms were then considered as neuters, and their plural endings changed to a. Thus, anthropos (man) became anthropion (small man); phleps (blood vessel) became phlebion (small vein, arteriole). Similarly, pyramis (pyramid) became pyramidion, the upper part or small final component of the pyramid, an important distinction because in some cases their walls had a different inclination or were covered with gold plates.4 In medicine, there are many nouns with the diminutive suffix –ion. When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, his empire was divided, facilitating the extension of a new power, Rome, which finally absorbed the empire. However, the influence of the Greek culture in Western Europe, the Constantinople Empire, and the Arabic world lasted through the Middle Ages. Many Greek terms have survived through Latin. Others disappeared, but have been recently reintroduced. Others are neologisms with Greek roots, which are frequently used in present-day medical language, such as xero-dacryology for the science of dry eye, centrotyphlosis for the loss of central vision (but not blindness) in age-related macular degeneration, or amphiopia for the ability to see at distance and near (because of youth, monovision, or use of multifocal extraor intraocular lenses).5 Collyrium is a Latin name. In 753 BC, several centuries before the maximal politico-military Hellenic extension, some Etruscan peoples founded the city of Rome—the city of the river—on the bank of the river Tiber. Over the years they mixed with and were absorbed by the local Latin T