Talk:Prophylaxis

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_— Preceding unsigned comment added by Wekeepwhatwekill (talk • contribs) 17:57, 17 May 2023 (UTC)

split up?

Absolutely not. This very short page has a single concept at its core. It would be weird and impractical to split it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

The chess bit certainly doesn't belong here. It belongs on Prophylaxis (chess), which should really be linked at the top. The bits about medical prophylaxis should probably be the focus of the article, per WP:SURPRISE; that's probably what most people typing it in will be looking for. The rest is kind of an etymology lesson, which is more for Wiktionary. Osiris (talk) 18:19, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Why does the page have to be about preventative medicine? The word was in use long before modern medicine, and has uses in many fields. I thought the medicine and chess were there as examples. We don't seem to have a category for concepts, and perhaps we should have; otherwise we are not doing justice to these general concepts. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Because that's what most people will be looking for, so it's the primary topic. Google "prophylaxis" and that's what you'll get. What was first shouldn't really matter to us. I wasn't even aware that it meant anything else, and most dictionaries online seem to stick to preventative medicine (Wiktionary and [1] for example, plus the one on my bookcase: Australian Oxford Dictionary, 4th ed.). Not to say we can't have an article about the act of preventing in general, but I think it should be under another title, like Prevention. A brief etymological section and a link to Wiktionary should suffice here, I think. Osiris (talk) 18:40, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

My SOED agrees with you; it says the use in medicine was primary, and other uses derivative. So I've learnt something today! Macdonald-ross (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2014 (UTC)