falco

Does anyone know when tendons got the name tendon? Or when the patella got its name? I'm writing historical fiction and can't find a reliable old medical dictionary.

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Aeryn

Sorry. I can't find anything either. Now i'm curious. This will bug me until I know the answer!!

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woodcut.evolution

As with many medical terms both are from Latin.

Patela is derived from Patina which means plate if I recall. Tendon is derived from Tendo which means stretch/extend (which makes sense considering what tendons do).

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mammamaia

all you need to do is look up the words in a good normal dictionary... the word root tells you how the word came to be...

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falco

hmmm, maybe what I said was confusing. I meant when in history did doctors start using those terms, not what their roots are. So, more specifically, would a doctor in the early 1800s use the words tendon and patella?

my dictionary gives me none of that information

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Ajax

I think if you research medical history and the use of latin terminology you'll probably find your answer. My guess would be that a lot of it comes from the researchers at the time using Latin as a common language. The Catholic church did a lot of the writing and transcribing of documents back in the middle ages, and they used a lot of Latin. It could be a lot of it comes from that. If you're a student of Latin that has been trained to write in that language by the church, then if you go out on your own to do research, you're probably going to write your findings in Latin. Whether the church agreed or not with your research, they still would have influenced the language you used.

I'm sure there are other reasons as well. And someone will probably reply with them. But the best thing to do would be to simply dig into it. If you can't find it on the web, then go to a library. (What, read hard copy!?!) Yep. It works.

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falco

Thanks, Ajax. I'm rather stranded at the moment but hopefully I'll be able to get into a library soon... and one that's more than 1,000 square feet...

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mammamaia

i did misunderstand, falco... sorry 'bout that... good luck in your research... have you looked for books published in that era that deal with doctors and body parts?... should be both fiction and non-...

btw, gray's anatomy was first published in 1858, so that will give you an idea of what was already in common usage by then...

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Mada

Well, I'd guess in early 1800's only coroners, scientists, and the such used tendon. We didn't have the technology to see humans's muscle without the human being dead. Maybe they used patella, though. This is all speculation, of course, so don't take this as a true statement.

falco

thanks, mammamaia and mada - I'll see if I can get my hands on some books and gray's anatomy

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