Abstract
This articles summarizes briefly the needs of medical terminology and highlights the history of medical dictionaries in the international language Esperanto. The pros and cons of the recently published “Eight-language Medical Enyclopaedic Dictionary” (ELMED) by Jozo Marević are discussed. Peculiar about this book is the fact that it stresses the importance of Latin as mainstay of medical terminology, but contains Esperanto-translations of the medical terms as well. In spite of some considerable flaws the ELMED constitutes a value in itself as an example of the European cultural tradition in medicine. By means of international collaboration the editors will definitely make the second edition a great success.