Albert Valdese doktoritöö ja tema panus eestikeelsete meditsiinioskussõnade väljatöötamisel. Albert Valdes's Doctoral Thesis and his Contribution into Developing Estonian Medical Terminology

Abstract

Albert Valdes was a Professor of Anatomical Pathology and one of the first in the University of Tartu to defend his doctoral dissertation in Estonian, which he did in 1922. When writing the dissertation, he struggled with the problem that Estonian medical terminology was inadequate. Valdes turned to another Professor of the University of Tartu, Johannes Voldemar Veski, to develop the necessary technical terms and they continued to work together for decades with that aim. Their purpose was not only to find terms lacking in Estonian but also to review and, if necessary, replace the technical terms already in use. Primarily the following terms were replaced: foreign loans; long and inaccurate compound words; words that could be interpreted in
multiple ways; words that did not enable to create necessary compound words; words that had multiple meanings; words that did not convey the correct meaning and words that breached grammar rules. Valdes was not only demanding about technical terms created by others but also continued to improve ones he himself had suggested. Valdes published his writings on technical terms mainly in the journal Eesti Arst (Estonian Physician), but also in popular scientific magazines Tervis, Agu and Loodus. In addition, a couple hundred of his writings were published in the Estonian Encyclopaedia, where he also acted as the editor for the medical section. In 1982 and 1983 two volumes of the Latin-Estonian-Russian Medical Dictionary by A. Valdes and J. V. Veski were published posthumously. The  dictionary included about 30,000 technical terms and it was the third thorough medical dictionary that has published in the Soviet Union.