mellicious | Entries tagged with anatomy

No man's land
the area between the distal crease of the palm and the proximal end of the middle phalanx. Also known as Zone 2.

I know the definition above may not quite be in English for everybody, so here's the illustration. I had to think this one over, myself.

Don't ask me why it's called that. It's not in the medical dictionary and not in Wikipedia except as pertains to World War I. I have no idea. Maybe before the days of arthroscopic surgery you didn't fool around with the flexor tendons, I don't know.

Remember back when I posted the word cryptorchidism and I was all interested in why "orchid" was a root word for testes? Well, apparently I am not the only one interested in that - there's actually a whole "fun facts" box about it in the anatomy book, including exactly who's responsible. Here it is, verbatim:

Do You Know . . .
Why Aristotle called the testicle the orchis?
The root of the orchid plant is olive shaped; in Greek the shape is called an orchis. Noticing the similarity between the shape of the orchid root and the testicles. Aristotle dubbed the testicle orchis. The word orchis is still used in medical terms. For example, orchitis refers to inflammation of the testicles, and orchiectomy refers to the surgical removal of the testicles. The word testis comes from the Latin and means to bear witness to. The word testes shares the same Latin root as the word testify. In ancient Rome, only men could bear witness, or testify. To show the importance of their testimony, the held their testicles as they spoke.

Huh. Well, that's interesting.

buffy coat
the light-colored layer of blood that is seen when anticoagulated blood is centrifuged or allowed to stand. It appears as a layer between the plasma and erythrocytes* and is composed of leukocytes and platelets.

*definitions for the definition:
erythrocytes = red blood cells
leukocytes = white blood cells
platelets = the things that make your blood clot

First definition from anatomy class! I had never heard this term before - even in Medical Terminology - and as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan of old, I was amused. (The medical dictionary does not give an origin but I'm guessing it's from "buffer" given the definition.)

In other news, I am as surprised as anybody to report that I liked Terminator: Salvation. Actually I liked it quite a lot more than I expected to, although admittedly this is a low bar since my expectations were practically zero. If I can gather my thoughts sufficiently - always a crapshoot, with me - I may have more to say about this later.

comminuted fracture
a fracture in which the bone is splintered or crushed

So, I intended to take three tests this week, and I have taken two. I made a 96 on the first anatomy test (skin and muscle) and 98 on the medical terminology test (muscle and skeleton). So that's going well, and the one that's left is the anatomy test over the skeleton. I am a little more worried about this one because the book goes into a lot of detail about some of the individual bones, much moreso than the medical terminology book. However, the notes that the instructor wrote imply that she does not intend to ask about, say, the individual names of the bones of the skull. (I can remember frontal, parietal, and occipital - after that I tend to get a little confused.) I have been making flash-cards to help me go over this a couple more times, but I'm probably overthinking it.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

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Entries tagged with anatomy

medical term for Thursday

Etymology post!

Today's medical term

Medical term for Friday

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