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----- Original Message ----- From: "julie hassell" Subject: Re: casualty in BMJ > Casualty comes from the word casual attender i.e. someone who could go > to hospital without a GP referral. Accident and Emergency came in over > 40 years ago (Standing Medical Advisory Committee, 1962) to discourage > such casual attenders........some hope! > julie Actually the dictionary definition of casualty is "a person injured or killed; a person lost to one side in a conflict by wounds, death, desertion; a thing damaged or destroyed". The etymology is from the Latin casus, from cadere - to fall. If only the punters knew this!! 1962 was only 39 years ago! :-) Adrian Fogarty