Yet another Aspect of Shiva Nataraja for our Discipline: The Crushing of Apasmara.

Nataraja is a well-known sculptural symbol in India and popularly used as a symbol of Indian culture. It is a depiction of Lord Shiva as the cosmic dancer who performs his divine dance as creator, preserver, and destroyer of the universe and conveys the Indian conception of the never-ending cycle of time. The same principle manifests in the hair cycle. Nataraja's right foot is planted squarely on the demon Apasmara. A dwarf, immensely powerful in his malignity, Apasmara is the embodiment of ignorance, and the manifestation of greedy, possessive selfhood. We have recently drawn attention to a practice of dishonesty in academic medicine, the deliberate act of ignoring the scientific work of others where it would be appropriate to acknowledge. Unless due to poor literacy or intellectual failure, this is usually deliberately practiced in an atmosphere of hostility or coterie, especially one that is exclusive of peers. Eponyms have a historical tradition in Western medical terminology. At a time when medicine did not command the means to investigate underlying causes, the eponym was a convenient way to label a disease condition. Conventionally, diseases have been named after the individual who originally described the condition. Being awarded an eponym has always been regarded as an honor, while the scientific community considers it as bad form to attempt to eponymize oneself. In an age, in which the person cult of the distinguished personalities of the past has become obsolete, the social media have created a new cult of the self. This cult has within it traits of narcissism: superficial charm, grandiosity and self-importance, a penchant for deception, and manipulation, and incapacity for remorse or guilt. In this atmosphere lure, the risks in the creation of personal eponyms: history sometimes shows credit should have gone to a different person. The possessive use of an eponym should be discontinued, since the author neither had nor owned the disorder. Finally, eponyms with derogative connotations should be omitted. There is a need to refrain from using inappropriate and controversial eponyms. Further academic and scientific efforts should be addressed to provide a structural systematization, semantic classification, and etymological categorization in medical nomenclature.