Epidemiology

The thirty-fourth entry is a doença de notificação obrigatória, and English answers those five words with one: a « notifiable » disease. The compression is worth unpacking, because the suffix is doing something it does not usually do. Ordinarily « -able » says what may be done to a thing: a « washable » shirt can go in the machine, a « readable » page can be got through. On that reading a « notifiable » disease would be one you are permitted to report, which is the opposite of the law. In statutes the suffix often means instead that a thing is liable to something. « Taxable income » is not income that could be taxed if somebody felt like it; it is income the tax falls on. « Payable on demand » offers nobody a choice. A « notifiable » disease is one a doctor is bound to report, within a set time, and the duty sits on the doctor rather than on the patient. The Portuguese phrase and the English adjective therefore say the same thing: one spells the obligation out, the other folds it into a suffix a reader has to know how to open.