Nomina anatomica-unde venient et quo vaditis?

AbstractAs the title indicates, this article deals with the origins of anatomic terminology and its development up to the present day. The first attempt to name anatomical structures in animals and humans date back to Alkmaion, i.e. to the fifth century BC. Further work has been done at the same time by the Hippocratics and about 100  years later by Aristotle. As the Alexandrians Erasistratos and Herophilos first in history dissected human bodies, they expanded the anatomical terms. Until Celsus (around Christ’s birth) and even later on, anatomical terminology was almost exclusively based on the Greek language. Thus, Celsus a nd not—as frequently done—Galenos has to be called the father of Latin-based anatomical terminology. Due to several translations including Arabic, first periods of proverbial Bable resulted. Return to systematic order was achieved finally by Andreas Vesal (1514/15–1564) and Caspar Bauhin (1560 –1624). But again due to translations into several national languages, the uniformity of the anatomical nomenclature was undermined. Thus, by the end of the nineteenth century, in 1895 the newly founded Anatomische Gesellschaft created a uniform terminology, the Basle Nomina Anatomica (BNA). Altho ugh it has been revised several times, it is still the very basic of human anatomical terminology. Recently, an attempt was made to replace it by English translations of the original Latin (and also still Greek) terms to mainly get machine-readable denomination...
Source: Anatomical Science International - Category: Anatomy Source Type: research