Though synergy appears in English texts in a general sense as far back as the seventeenth century, it was not widely adopted as a medical term until the mid-nineteenth century. In medical texts from this time, it often appears in italics as a foreign word. In a revealing passage from 1827, the physician W.P. Allison wrote, “I would object to the term synergy, which some have proposed to borrow from the French.” In truth, the word comes from Latin and Greek, and cognates exist in several European languages, such as German (Synergie) and Italian (sinergia).
In 1903, the American sociologist Frank Lester Ward wrote, “there is a universal principle, operating in every department of nature . . . evident to me for many years, but it required long meditation and extensive observation to discover its true nature. After having fairly grasped it I was still troubled to reduce it to its simplest form, and characterize it by an appropriate name. I have at last fixed on the word synergy.” By bestowing a cosmic significance to the word, Ward contributed to a surge in its popularity over the next several years.
Today synergy聽is a buzz word in business, sometimes called the 鈥�2+2=5 effect.鈥� This sense of “success through cooperation” entered English in the 1950s, and its use has surged since then.
Relevant Quotations:
“It is met with in cases in which synergy is wanting, in which the womb may be doing well in one part, while another, which should manifest correspondent functions, in perfectly quiescent.”
–Walter Channing, “Power’s New Principles of Midwifery,”聽, Volume 10 (1821)
“The search is for synergy, the concept under which 2 + 2 = 5, that will allow two businesses to generate more profits together than they could separately.”
“Observations on the Physiological Principle of Sympathy, chiefly in reference to the peculiar doctrines of Mr Charles Bell,” by W.P. Allison. , Volume 3 Maclachlan and Stewart, 1827
, by Frank Lester Ward, The Macmillan Company, 1903.
