A new resource was added to Cosnautas in March: Diccionario inglés-español de alergología e inmunología clínica, by Juan Manuel Igea Aznar. I’ve been browsing through the dictionary to see how it might help me the next time the subject crops up in a translation.

Of course, browsing a virtual dictionary isn’t the same as flicking through the pages of a print book, but Cosnautas makes good use of hyperlinked cross references, so you can get quite a good idea by simply clicking on terms and following your mouse’s instinct.

Libro rojo and Alergología e inmunología: side by side
The question that immediately sprang to mind was whether the Libro rojo was so lacking in the field of allergology and immunology that another dictionary was needed to make up for these gaps. Not so. Most of the terms are already translated in the Libro rojo, but comparing terms in the two resources, I found that Alergología e inmunología naturally expanded more on certain concepts (e.g., prick test, challenge and asthma). And it has some fascinating, lengthy entries describing quite common concepts, such as anaphylaxis and atopic dermatitis.

Alergología e inmunología has about 2000 entries, so of course it has some terms that aren’t in the Libro rojo at all (e.g., tumor necrosis factor and DRESS syndrome).

The Libro Rojo tends to advise against Anglicisms, whereas Alergología e inmunología is more resigned to accepting empirical evidence of usage. Thus, “anaphylactic shock” is translated as “choque anafiláctico” in the former and “shock anafiláctico” in the latter (although both discuss these options). Alergología e inmunología wisely recommends preserving English acronyms where their translation could simply lead to confusion.

History and etymology
I liked the detailed notes on history and etymology. For example, I didn’t know that immunotherapy already dates back 100 years to the first pollen “inoculations”, when investigators thought that the immune system would create antibodies to fight toxins in the pollen, only to discover later that immunotherapy in fact reduced the body’s sensitivity to allergens. Check out “allergen immunotherapy” for more details.

Implementation in Cosnautas
Alergología e inmunología hasn’t been added yet to the Quick Search feature and it isn’t included in a user’s search history. I look forward to that being sorted.

Appendices
Finally, Alergología e inmunología has two useful appendices. The first is an allergen nomenclature and the second is a table of common plant names in English and Spanish, followed by the scientific name.

Quiz time*

What’s the English for:

trigo ortiga fresno aligustre quinoa cañuela

If, like me, you can’t get much further than the first two or three (even with the clue in the photo) then the new Cosnautas resource is just what you need!

* Answers in the comment below