Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Insufflation (medicine)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. or "nomination withdrawn". Pick one. (non-admin closure) Timotheus Canens (talk) 23:55, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Insufflation (medicine)

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The word 'insufflation' means 'to blow'. This article is about the intranasal administration of drugs, which is something different. I believe that because this article purports to be about a medical concept, it should be held to strict standards of verifiability. I cannot find the word 'insufflate' being used in this way in any online dictionary. The cited sources do not uphold the purported definition of the term. Richard Cavell (talk) 06:12, 25 December 2009 (UTC) (a trained doctor)
 * Okay, I'm going to withdraw my nomination because my nomination and the 'keep' replies don't actually conflict with each other. I support the idea of an article at insufflation (medicine) - I just hope that someone is able to improve on what's there currently. - Richard Cavell (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

2. The blowing or breathing (of something) in; in Med. the blowing of air, etc. into the lungs, or of gas, vapour, or powder into or on some part of the body. 1823 CRABB Technol. Dict., Insufflation (Med.), the blowing into any cavity. 1849-52 TODD Cycl. Anat. IV. 1046/2 Insufflation in the dead body is not the movement of inspiration in the living subject. 1876 BARTHOLOW Mat. Med. (1879) 4 By the method of insufflation solid medicinal agents in a finely-divided state are applied to various parts of the respiratory tract. 1887 J. W. BURGON in Fortn. Rev. Apr. 593 With the insufflation of his soul, Adam received also the grace of the Holy Spirit. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 681 The insufflation of iodoform..has given good results. 1898 Ibid. V. 198 Violent inspiratory efforts..and..consequent insufflation of infective secretion into healthy lung. Also the third definition is medical. 3. The condition of being inflated or distended with air. 1866 A. FLINT Princ. Med. (1880) 244 The names acute emphysema and insufflation are given to a dilatation of the air-cells frequently met with in the lungs of those who have suffered from severe dyspn{oe}a during the last days or hours of life. 1877 ROBERTS Handbk. Med. (ed. 3) I. 171 The lungs are in many cases the seat of acute insufflation. The definition given for insufflator is also relevant: A contrivance for insufflating. a. An instrument for blowing air into the lungs or for injecting powders into a cavity, a wound, etc. b. A kind of injector for blowing air into a furnace. 1872 COHEN Dis. Throat 192 Astringent powders may be propelled upon the parts..from the insufflator of Rauchfuss. 1886 Syd. Soc. Lex., Ribemont-Dessaigne's Insufflator, an instrument for inflating the lungs in an asphyxiated newborn child. 1897 Allbutt's Syst. Med. IV. 682 To insufflate the nose with iodoform by means of Kabierski's insufflator. LittleHow (talk) 07:27, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The Oxford English Dictionary gives as its second definition of Insufflation a medical use:
 * The OED appears to confirm that I am right - insufflation is about blowing, not sniffing. I don't have a problem with us having an article on insufflation as a medical procedure, but all of your references from the late 1800s describe obsolete medical therapies. The present article is about modern intranasal drug administration. - Richard Cavell (talk) 10:45, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[f. L. insuffl{amac}t-, ppl. stem of insuffl{amac}re (post-cl.), f. in- (IN-2) + suffl{amac}re to blow upon. Cf. F. insuffler (14-15th c.).] 1. trans. To blow or breathe in.
 * Keep There is editing work to do but it does not require deletion. Our dab page snort leads here and we should not allow such a common term to dead-end.  The term insufflation is sometimes used to mean snorting by sources such as this but it would be better to have it under the common name of snorting.  Insufflation is properly blowing rather than snorting.  This has medical uses and so we should split the article so that it blows rather than sucks. :) Colonel Warden (talk) 09:52, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Though insufflate from the Latin means to blow it also covers the meaning to breath in. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following explanation of its etymology:
 * The word was originally used in a religious context--"Blowing or breathing upon a person or thing to symbolize the influence of the Holy Spirit and the expulsion of evil spirits; a rite of exorcism used in the Roman, Greek, and some other churches". It has since become adopted for a medical and psychoactive drug self-administrative one. Other words have made this passage such as "placebo".
 * There is an important difference which needs to be distinguished with the administration of psychoactive but also toxic drugs between those procedures over which a person has no control and those over which they can control and so "titrate". A procedure under the control of a person and which they can monitor (since it goes straight to the brain as with snorting and "smoking") allows the intake of the substance so that it is self-administered to maximum psychoactive effect but also near but not over the point of its toxicity. For this reason I would argue against the alternative of a delete of a merge with Nasal administration. --LittleHow (talk) 03:43, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Nasal administration. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:25, 26 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Insufflation is not just about the nose. For example, perirenal insufflation was a common process for diagnosis of kidney complaints. Colonel Warden (talk) 20:02, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Good point. Keep. -- Gyrofrog (talk) 04:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I had split this article from Insufflation because the latter mostly described the religious context (though most of the links to that article were in the medical context). It did not make sense to have them together in the same article (at least, not as it was written). I can't otherwise vouch for Insufflation (medicine) as I split it pretty much as-was. (See also Talk:Insufflation (medicine) or Talk:Insufflation) -- Gyrofrog (talk) 17:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Pubmed shows that Insufflation is a widely and diversely used word in medicine with it appearing in 1301 medical article titles and 4378 article abstracts. Some of these usages are already in wikipedia though not mentioned in the article such as Artificial_respiration. --LittleHow (talk) 09:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.