Talk:Graves' disease

Page name

Should it be "Graves' disease" or "Graves's disease"?

The NIH uses the first[1]

The ICD uses "Graves disease"[2] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:05, 28 September 2017 (UTC)

There are two separate questions that should be asked here.

1. A well-posed primary question should be: Which grammatical form of the name Graves do we use, a possessive (Graves'/Graves's disease) or an attributive noun (Graves disease)? "Graves' disease" is just a variant of "Graves's disease" where a possessive of a singular noun Graves is used. "Graves disease", on the other hand, uses Graves as attributive noun. Both could be grammatically correct, although the typical/common use with respect to diseases on Wikipedia is to use possessives of names (e.g. Alzheimer's disease, Behçet's disease, Crohn's disease, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease). The consensus in the literature seems to point to the possessive use case for Graves as well.

2. So if we settle on possessive use rather than attributive use (namely, Graves'/Graves's and not Graves), then the secondary question of the spelling still remains: Graves' vs. Graves's. MOS:POSS gives some guidance, although it's pretty vague. Most in-depth discussions on the same subject do agree that despite vague MOS:POSS prescriptions, most published manuals of style do agree on strong preference towards -s's. So that we zero in on -s's being more non-controversial and classically correct than -s' . See e.g. Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_126#MOS:POSS_broken and Talk:Steve_Jobs/Archive_3#Jobs.27_or_Jobs.27s.3F for some examples of extended discussions. Note also, that being a matter of grammar (and not the medical subject itself), this question should not be resolved by medical literature anymore (e.g. by a predominance of one spelling vs. the other), but rather by reference to English grammar and manuals of style – regardless of which spelling happens to be popular in medical literature.

If an incorrect (or less grammatically correct) spelling happens to be commonly used, as seems to be the case here, we should acknowledge it by noting "often cited as <common misspelling>". Which is exactly what I did in the edits you reverted before creating this discussion.

So the first sentence should read:

"Graves's disease (often cited as Graves' disease), also known as toxic diffuse goiter, is an autoimmune disease that affects the thyroid."

cherkash (talk) 06:34, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

We name stuff based on what name is mostly commonly used in high quality sources not based on English spelling rules. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Doc James: That may or may not be true, but only with respect to article names (and even that is guided by proofreading, etc.). But it's definitely not true with respect to text of the articles. Basic copyediting rules prevail (grammar, punctuation, etc.) regardless of common misspellings (which may and should be given credence when indeed common – like it is in this case, which is exactly what I proposed by adding "often cited as" clause). cherkash (talk) 06:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

You will need consensus. There is no way around this. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:22, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Consensus for what exactly? I've laid out the arguments above. You haven't said much about the subject except for repeating "you need consensus" in multiple forums where we've happened to discuss this. Spelling/grammar changes don't need consensus. Agreeing on the name (specifically, on what substitutes the most common name) may require discussion, but it boils down only to the grammatical structure in this case (essentially, what function "Graves" serves – see above), and we don't even seem to have any disagreement on this. So we do have consensus. Pushing for any other notion of consensus, that is, on the subject of spelling alone (which we need to acknowledge, e.g. by "often cited as", but no more than that) seems to be a way to stall any discussion and push back on proof-reading changes which are reasonable by any standard. Again, spelling/grammar changes don't need consensus. That's the end of it. And pushing for more than "often cited as" without any other reasons is just an obstruction of other editors' work on your part. cherkash (talk) 10:45, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

I have said we generally go with what major sources use. So I oppose your suggested change in the name. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:52, 7 October 2017 (UTC)

Major sources on this subject are not authoritative on English language (grammar, style, etc.) while dictionaries and manuals of style are. And as been indicated a few times already, the recommendations and guidance are heavily skewed towards "Graves's" in this case. cherkash (talk) 00:25, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

English is a descriptive not proscriptive language. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:44, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

This may or may not be true, depending on whom you ask. But it's certainly beyond the point here. The grammar and sentence construction may certainly be "descriptive" in English, but without the spelling necessarily being so. E.g., we don't give in to the present-day ubiquitous lax spelling and spelling shortcuts in the Wikipedia articles in general (except in direct quotes), and there's certainly no reason to relax the spelling rules and best practices in this article either (outside of direct quotes, e.g. cited reference titles). In fact, as I mentioned, there are great arguments why -s's is a much more preferable construction than -s', and so far you happened to make no language-based arguments whatsoever on why we should prefer the latter to be used in the article text rather than the former.

So let me try to address what I perceive may potentially be couple points of concern for you, and how to deal with them. (I'm doing this purely speculatively, as you didn't really use any argument except the "common use" argument so far.) So here goes, just so that we address it in case you imply one of these reasons.

• How the subject is being searched for, and whether a different spelling will affect readers' ability to locate it. – Well, this is exactly what #redirects are for, so there shouldn't be any problem here.
• Acknowledging the common and prominent use in medical literature of the -s' variant in this particular case. – That's what the proposed "often cited as" is for, as it gives acknowledgement to the commonly used (mis)spelling in the very first sentence of the article without having to sacrifice the article's contents to a grammatically much less common and certainly a questionable variant of a singular possessive use in the context of English language/grammar.
• A particular spelling is entrenched in literature, so we have no choice but to follow it. – That could be a good argument if the subject were a specific word/name that happened to be a single grammatical entity. But this is not the case here: the construction is "<name> disease" which is clearly a language construction consisting of two parts and not a single entity. So the correct spelling must be devised based on language rules which brings this into the domain of copyediting. You actually acknowledged as much in your original question you asked mentioning that ICD uses "Graves" in its attributive form. Hence, the only question left to argue here is not of spelling but of grammatical use. I laid it out in my first response to you above. Please re-read it again.

So would you please address the language issues on their merits, rather than invoking the same argument about commonly used spelling that doesn't really apply to how we write an article's contents and what spelling we use throughout. So again, my challenge to your assertions is that this is the issue of grammar/copyediting and not of challenging the common use (on which we actually do agree! – it resolves towards the use of possessive form, instead of attributive noun). cherkash (talk) 14:04, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

You can try a RfC. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:10, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Your answers look strange to say the least. Despite your own initial pointing to this Talk page as a forum to discuss my changes and your insistence on discussing the subject here, you are trying to avoid any serious discussion. So unless you really address the subject matter – which I already outlined at length above – I think this discussion is over. I'm going to make the editorial changes again unless you become serious about this discussion and are able to put forward something resembling an actual argument. cherkash (talk) 02:01, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• What you need to follow is described here Wikipedia:Requested_moves#CM Best Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:00, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

We are not talking about the page move only. We are also discussing the edits to the page itself that you kept reverting. Do you have no more objections to the page edits at this point? cherkash (talk) 06:36, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

What the page is called is generally also the term that we use. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:58, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Surgery - Complications May Include Pregnancy and Young Age?

"Advantages are immediate cure and potential removal of carcinoma. Its risks are injury of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, hypoparathyroidism (due to removal of the parathyroid glands), hematoma (which can be life-threatening if it compresses the trachea), pregnancy, young age, relapse following medical treatment, infections (less common), and scarring."

Am I missing something or does that make absolutely no sense? Jwuthe2 (talk) 08:10, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

User:Jwuthe2 thanks. Agree it makes no sense and removed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:05, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Inclusion of the "In literature" section

Diseases in art and popular culture are mentioned in other Wikipedia articles such as Kuru (disease) and even dedicated ones such as Huntington's disease in popular culture and Tuberculosis in human culture. It seems to me that mentioning its occurence in Italo Svevo's "Zeno's Conscience", a significant novel in Italian literature, fulfils the notability requirement. Besides, it makes the article more comprehensive, just like the "Notable cases" section, which is not of strict biomedical relevance either. Maybe it could be rephrased to something like "Grave's disease is mentioned in the novel..." or maybe the topic should be renamed to something less specific, such as "In literature and popular culture". Vmarquioni (talk) 17:15, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

This page Zeno's Conscience does not even mention the disease. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

The page already mentioned it, although only briefly (as expected for a page about the book itself). I have included a link to Grave's disease but preserving the name used in the novel, Basedow's disease. Vmarquioni (talk) 18:43, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Were is a source that says this is an important literary example of Grave's? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:50, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

A quick search returns this: https://www.thewisemagazine.it/2017/08/19/morbo-di-basedow-sfinimento-zeno-realta/. Besides, the Italian page for Grave's disease also mentions the book and includes a quotation from it (I wanted to include the direct link, but Wikipedia keeps saying the page doesn't exist; it should be "Malattia di Basedow-Graves"). Vmarquioni (talk) 19:04, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I have just found other useful sources: 1) In http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0901/brotto/, the author says (item VI): "Basedow’s disease plays a major role in Svevo’s novel. After she gave birth to twins (an archaic sign of mimetic crisis that is by no means incidental) the disease affects Ada, Guido’s wife and Zeno’s sister-in-law, whom the latter had fancied as a wife for himself and whom he desires still. She now is deprived of health and beauty. By meditating on this pathology, Zeno reaches the conclusion that health is a median value between the two extremes of a scale." 2) In https://www.enotes.com/topics/confessions-zeno/characters, the authors say: "Zeno himself likes to analyze life in terms of health and disease, especially Basedow’s disease." 3) In the book "Literary Diseases: Theme and Metaphor in the Italian Novel" (available in Google Books), the author also mentions Graves's disease (using the name Basedow's disease) as an important aspect of the novel. All those examples come from literary analyses of a medical topic (not medical ones), but clearly indicate that there is notability in that topic. Vmarquioni (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay I guess with those refs. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:59, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your feedback, Doc James. And merging those two topics worked out well. Vmarquioni (talk) 00:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Prevalence

We have three statements that don't make sense to me:

1. Intro: "Graves' disease will develop in about 0.5% of males and 3% of females."
2. Epidemiology: "Graves' disease occurs in about 0.5% of people."
3. Intro and Epidemiology: "It occurs about 7.5 times more often in women than in men."

#1 and #2 don't seem to fit with each other. Something that occurs in 1 out of every 200 males and 6 out of every 200 females should occur in about 7 out of every 400 people, or about 1.75% of people. And if it occurs 7.5 times more often in women than in men, wouldn't it occur in just about 4% of females? Obviously "males and females" doesn't exactly equal "men and women", since the latter excludes children, but (1) this sounds like it's uncommon in childhood, so maybe we can ignore children, and (2) if children are a major factor, they should have rates comparable to that of adults, which couldn't be the case if the difference I'm seeing were the result of children appearing in #1 but not #3.

Nyttend backup (talk) 18:17, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Cure for Graves Disease

I had Graves Disease but cured it by flushing out my digestive tract and then not eating anything for 3 days. Has anybody run across any published literature (RS) on this cure that could be used in Wikipedia? 75.4.34.74 (talk) 09:55, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Considering Graves disease is an autoimmune condition causing secretion of antibodies active on the thyroid tissue, there is no medical validity to your proposed cure. Please see a doctor. 203.10.55.11 (talk) 16:35, 10 November 2020 (UTC)