So this Pediatrician I shadow gave me this book (above) and it has been a quick and interesting read. I can totally identify with the feelings of having your first dissection, the use of the term "cadaver juice", all of it. As I was reading in it today they discussed the spleen. The spleen is an organ that is purplish-maroon and about the size of the half of a grapefruit (or a huge orange in today's GMO enhanced world of produce). Anyway, in the middle ages, they thought the spleen was the source of black humour or melancholy. The spleen sits deep under your ribs. A condition, -ia, of something that is below, hypo, the cartilaginous portion of your ribcage, chrondr-, is better known as hypochondria. And, as it turns out, this condition of having poor feelings about your health was thought to stem from melancholy or the black humour. Hence they called the condition Hypochondria. Isn't that nifty? I love when you know the Latin roots of words in science, especially in anatomy. Most things are named for where they are or what they look like....only in Latin.
Take the EYE for example.
The eye has these extraocular muscles that allow it to swivel so easily. They are named for their shape (rectus - straight, oblique - neither perpendicular nor parallel : inclined : having the axis not perpendicular to the base : having no right angle). There are four muscles that are some form of Rectus and two that are some form of Oblique. Why do we care? See the red dotted ring a short ways back from the cornea on the sclera? That is called the limbus region. And that red dotted line is the exact cut I have to make when I am recovering donor corneas from deceased people for my new job.
Which brings us to our last topic...ZOMBIES.
I just started watching The Walking Dead on Netflix. I have always said that eyes and fingernails are the two things that freak me out about dead people. But now I have to deal with dead eyes. a lot of dead eyes. And I am afraid that if I combine a zombie show with the freakiness of dead eyes that I may have zombie nightmares.
I hope not.
