Whence 'zoster'? The convoluted classical origins of a sometimes illogical term.

ABSTRACT

The term 'zoster' is nowadays associated with 'herpes zoster', the condition resulting from reactivation of the latent varicella-zoster virus which causes shingles. But in antiquity the meaning of 'zoster', a Latin word originating from the Greek for a belt or girdle, was variously associated in men with a form of body armour which could enclose just one half of the body; in women with a garment worn around the waist and sometimes called a 'zona'; and with a place, Zoster, linked mythologically then with the goddess Leto and her zona. Around 48 AD, the Roman physician Scribonius Largus became the first to associate 'zona' with 'herpes', and to attribute a medical meaning to 'zona', here an abbreviation of 'zona ignea' ('fiery girdle'). Although in the past the terms 'zoster' and 'zona' were sometimes used interchangeably, today only 'zoster' remains-even when etymologically illogical in those patients whose zoster rash occurs in body areas other than the trunk.