カルテ

"Karute" means a medical chart or patient record in Japanese. It looks unusual if you expect modern medical English, because English speakers would usually say "chart", "record", or "medical file". The Japanese word is generally traced to German "Karte", meaning card, chart, or map. This borrowing makes sense historically: modern Japanese medicine was strongly influenced by German medical education and terminology, especially from the Meiji period into the early twentieth century. In Japanese, "karute" did not keep the broad German meaning of "card". It specialized into the hospital context and came to mean the record a doctor keeps about a patient. That makes it a useful example of how professional vocabulary can fossilize an older international relationship. Learners should also notice that Japanese often preserves older European sources even when present-day English dominates global medicine. When you hear "karute" at a clinic, think "German Karte narrowed to medical chart."