Johnny shirt

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>My sister, who is a medical transcriptionist, forwarded to me this article
>from The Medical Post, a Canadian doctors' journal:
>
>http://www.medicalpost.com/mpcontent/article.jsp?content=/content/EXTRACT/RAWART/3833/44A.html
>
>September 17, 2002 Volume 38 Issue 33
>
>MY WORD, DOCTOR
>
>Johnny, what's the origin of your shirt?
>
>Your help is needed to unravel an East Coast saying
>By Stewart Cameron
>
>    This column usually provides information on medical words, but this
> month is different. I'm looking for your stories about a curious medical term.
>    Do you know what a "Johnny shirt" is?

I think it's more usually just a "johnny". This term is conventional AFAIK.
It appears in MW3 and RHUD. I don't believe it's regionally restricted.
Maybe it's a little old-fashioned now, replaced by just "gown" maybe.
Sometimes I've encountered "johnny-shirt" or "johnny-gown" or whatever, and
quite often "hospital johnny". I don't know what the original form was.

-- Doug Wilson