Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles

message: A PubMed search for article title + abstract text for exact string match. For example: "down's syndrome" in 1983. 
 Non-possessive vs Possessive
Year	Parkinson	Parkinson's	ratio	Alzheimer	Alzheimer's	ratio	Down 	Downs	ratio
1983	14       	181        	12.9 	24       	156        	6.5  	62   	157  	2.5
1984	21       	277        	13.2 	16       	200        	12.5 	62   	143  	2.3
1985	17       	270        	15.9 	20       	316        	15.8 	94   	145  	1.5
1986	27       	342        	12.7 	35       	462        	13.2 	93   	187  	2.0
1987	33       	491        	14.9 	36       	499        	13.9 	125  	176  	1.4
1988	33       	429        	13.0 	67       	606        	9.0  	131  	210  	1.6
1989	53       	538        	10.2 	77       	870        	11.3 	151  	211  	1.4
1990	52       	606        	11.7 	99       	825        	8.3  	243  	208  	0.9
1991	41       	673        	16.4 	102      	955        	9.4  	170  	228  	1.3
1992	53       	707        	13.3 	115      	1,041      	9.1  	195  	213  	1.1
1993	61       	764        	12.5 	145      	1,128      	7.8  	212  	252  	1.2
1994	61       	768        	12.6 	170      	1,419      	8.3  	183  	218  	1.2
1995	61       	931        	15.3 	191      	1,460      	7.6  	247  	229  	0.9
1996	47       	963        	20.5 	234      	1,771      	7.6  	249  	255  	1.0
1997	93       	1,181      	12.7 	308      	1,856      	6.0  	246  	199  	0.8
1998	87       	1,216      	14.0 	313      	2,043      	6.5  	274  	198  	0.7
1999	123      	1,344      	10.9 	309      	2,016      	6.5  	321  	207  	0.6
2000	115      	1,518      	13.2 	310      	2,306      	7.4  	285  	174  	0.6
2001	123      	1,484      	12.1 	323      	2,355      	7.3  	391  	182  	0.5
2002	174      	1,734      	10.0 	367      	2,540      	6.9  	336  	188  	0.6
2003	209      	2,023      	9.7  	395      	2,629      	6.7  	364  	156  	0.4
2004	291      	2,100      	7.2  	543      	3,122      	5.7  	378  	137  	0.4
2005	347      	2,146      	6.2  	590      	3,323      	5.6  	460  	130  	0.3
2006	431      	2,618      	6.1  	766      	3,637      	4.7  	517  	167  	0.3
2007	456      	2,845      	6.2  	687      	3,772      	5.5  	533  	139  	0.3
2008	479      	3,082      	6.4  	751      	4,079      	5.4  	538  	149  	0.3
2009	578      	3,306      	5.7  	832      	4,450      	5.3  	524  	132  	0.3
2010	633      	3,766      	5.9  	933      	5,233      	5.6  	606  	127  	0.2
2011	631      	4,135      	6.6  	882      	5,611      	6.4  	668  	119  	0.2
2012	688      	4,500      	6.5  	1,025    	6,334      	6.2  	729  	126  	0.2
2013	786      	4,869      	6.2  	1,081    	6,875      	6.4  	792  	144  	0.2
2014	791      	5,054      	6.4  	1,017    	7,474      	7.3  	840  	130  	0.2
2015	890      	5,534      	6.2  	1,022    	7,918      	7.7  	789  	105  	0.1
2016	975      	5,918      	6.1  	1,079    	8,310      	7.7  	777  	96   	0.1
2017	993      	6,234      	6.3  	1,172    	8,930      	7.6  	822  	81   	0.1
2018	979      	6,413      	6.6  	1,092    	9,388      	8.6  	814  	69   	0.1
2019	953      	6,807      	7.1  	1,166    	10,103     	8.7  	828  	78   	0.1
2020	1,083    	7,982      	7.4  	1,242    	11,667     	9.4  	948  	73   	0.1
2021	1,035    	8,805      	8.5  	1,186    	13,055     	11.0 	1,064	95   	0.1
2022	893      	8,743      	9.8  	1,182    	13,444     	11.4 	1,048	82   	0.1
2023	873      	8,575      	9.8  	1,112    	14,177     	12.7 	980  	78   	0.1
These show that for PubMed article titles and abstracts:
*The possessive form of "Parkinson's disease" averaged around 13x more popular than "Parkinson disease" in the 80s an 90s then declined to 6x more popular in the 00s but has crept up again to be nearly 10x more popular in 2023. 
*The possessive form of "Alzheimer's disease" had a peak of 16x more popular than "Alzheimer disease" in the mid 80s then declined to 4.7x more popular in the mid 00s but has crept up again to be nearly 13x more popular in 2023. (Not sure what was going on with the 1983 figure, which seems to be an anomaly).
*The possessive form of "Down's syndrome" in 1983 was about 2.5x more common than "Down syndrome" but declined to reach parity around 1996 and is currently about 12.5x less common.
Here are also the Ngram stats:
*Parkinson's
*Alzheimer's
*Down's
The ngram results show the possessive is way ahead of the non-possessive for all three conditions and the only chart showing some meaningful variation is the one for Down's syndrome where the possessive is becoming steadily less popular but still a long way to go.
Personally, I dislike searches like these as it is so easy to make mistakes or misinterpret the results. Please let me know if they are misinterpreted or incorrect. I remain unmoved from my position that the differences are almost entirely to do with pronunciation and uncertainty about how to form a possessive rather than invented reasons like whether the person had it or the doctor had it. Other examples mentioned above are Tay–Sachs, where the the second guy is called Sachs and very few people on planet Earth are sure how to make that possessive or enjoy saying it. And similarly, Chédiak–Higashi syndrome is a disease named after two people, and even fewer people on planet Earth are confident to make that possessive, and many might even assume it is a place name. The general trend with diseases is to avoid and sometimes replace those named after people or places. For example, Ebola would not get that name in 2023. Worrying about whether there's an apostrophe in a name that still clearly refers to the doctor/patient generates a remarkable amount of publications. Don't doctors have more important things to do, like treating patients?
SMcCandlish research contains a lot of useful links but there are two dozen sources cited, which disagree, most of which acknowledge this is an ongoing area of dispute.  Consistency of article titles might be an argument for picking one style over another. It would be more persuasive if the usage patterns for possessive vs non-possessive, particularly for ...disease, were similar, or that there was a consistent trend away from the possessive for ...disease forms. But currently there's really no love for Parkinson disease or Alzheimer disease on either side of the Atlantic, and if anything, it is getting rarer. I wonder if this is a result of SEO practices when writing papers, that there's a strong pressure to pick the more popular search term. Also note that I only searched for the full name of these diseases/syndromes. Searching for the abbreviated form (e.g., "Parkinson" without "--- disease") is left to the reader (I had a go and it didn't surprise me at all that the possessive form was very popular and non-possessive rare, but there are contaminants from other uses of that name). -- Colin°Talk 16:48, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for this, Colin.  This is a very good illustration.  My conclusion is that while there may be a consistent pattern for some diseases, sources do not have a consistent pattern across all diseases.  We therefore should be willing to have both "Down" and "Alzheimer's", without trying to force either of them to conform to the pattern preferred for the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:14, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Stats