The history of the term pudendum: Opening the discussion on anatomical sex inequality.

The anatomical terminology for the female external genitalia, "pudendum," was removed from the second edition of the Terminologia Anatomica (2019) in response to opposition of the Latin root of the word (pudere meaning "to be ashamed"). This recent revision provides an opportunity to discuss sex inequality within the history of anatomy. This viewpoint article compares the evolution of modern anatomical terminology toward clarity and precision to the stagnant non-descriptive naming of the "pudendum" to illuminate a long timeline of the societal misperception of women. Claudius Galen (129-216 BC) used the Greek αιδοίον/aidoion (from αἰδώς/aidos meaning shame, respect, or modesty) to describe both the male and female external genitalia, as he believed that men and women were isomorphic, the difference lying only in the positioning of the reproductive organs. Galen, however, was not always impartial in his comparisons, repeatedly describing the female as inferior to the male. Andreas Vesalius (1543), whose illustrations greatly influenced the study of anatomy, later drew the female genitalia as Galen described them, as internal equivalents of male genitalia, codifying female shame within anatomical terminology. While renaming "pudendum" is a noble step in support of women, changing one word will not undo generations of implicit bias and institutional oppression. We can, however, work to create culturally and psychosocially competent future physicians through the integrative study of sex and gender issues and anatomy. Through an understanding of historical context, physicians can refocus their actions on providing care in a way that leaves the patient feeling proud, not ashamed.

Medical Students' Assessment of Eduard Pernkopf's Atlas: Topographical Anatomy of Man.

INTRODUCTION: To date, there has been no study examining the perceptions of first-year medical students regarding Eduard Pernkopf's atlas, particularly during their study of gross anatomy and prior to coursework in medical ethics. We present a discussion of Pernkopf's Atlas: Topographical Anatomy of Man from the perspective of U.S. medical students, and sought to determine whether medical students view Pernkopf's Topographical Anatomy of Man as a resource of greater accuracy, detail, and potential educational utility as compared to Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy. METHODS: The entire first-year class at Drexel University College of Medicine (265 students) was surveyed at approximately the midpoint of their gross anatomy course and 192 responses were collected (72% response rate). RESULTS: Of these, 176 (95%) were unaware of the existence of Pernkopf's atlas. Another 71% of students found the Pernkopf atlas more likely complete and accurate, whereas 76% thought the Netter atlas more useful for learning (p<.001). When presented with a hypothetical scenario in which the subjects used in creating Pernkopf's atlas were donated, or unclaimed, but with knowledge that Pernkopf was an active member of the Nazi party, 133 students (72%) retained their original position (p=.001). About 94% desired discussion of Pernkopf within a medical school bioethics course. The relationship between level of self-reported knowledge and whether or not students would advocate removal of the atlas was statistically significant (p=.013). CONCLUSION: Discussing ethical violations in medical history, especially the Pernkopf atlas, must attain a secure place in medical school curricula, and more specifically, within a bioethics course.

Constantin von Economo's last publication: a commentary on Charles Fraipont's "Évolution cérébrale".

This paper highlights a commentary written by the neurologist Constantin von Economo on a book published by the Belgian paleontologist Charles Fraipont in 1931. The commentary appears to be Economo's last opus, published posthumously in early 1933. The reviewed work deals with the evolution of the brain in primates, hominids and humans, presenting some interesting ideas about the phylogeny of the human cerebral hemispheres in conjunction with the living conditions of the genera in consideration.

'Abnormalities and deformities': the dissection and interment of the insane poor, 1832-1929.

The body trade of anatomy schools in Victorian times that underpinned the expansion of medical education has been neglected. This article examines dissection records of insane paupers, sold to repay their welfare debt to society. Each cadaver was entered in an 'Abnormalities and Deformities' dissection book. Student doctors paid fees to anatomists to be taught the pathology of insanity under the Medical Act. Anatomists also dissected cadavers to do further brain and eye research on epilepsy and glaucoma in the insane. These bodies were often dissected to their extremities. Their fragmentary remains were then disposed of in a common grave. This secret body trade and its asylum supply-chain merit further work in disability studies and the history of psychiatry.

[Wouter van Doeveren (1730-1783) professor of practical medicine, obstetrics and pathology]. / Wouter van Doeveren (1730-1783) professeur de médecine pratique, d'obstétrique et d'anatomie pathologique.

Between September 1752 and July 1753, Wouter van Doeveren, a student of Gaubius, Albinus and Winter at Leyden University, studied, together with a couple of friends at various Paris hospitals in order to improve his skills in the fields of surgery and obstetrics. After his return to Leyden, he took his doctor's degree in medicine and started his practice in that town. In 1754 he was appointed professor of medicine at Groningen University. In 1770 he was appointed professor of theoretical and practical medicine at Leyden University. He held that office until his death on 31 December 1783. He was a most appreciated foreign member of the Société Royale de Médecine (Paris) and of the Royal Society of Medicine (Edinburgh). He succeeded in improving his medical skills, by doing thorough research in the fields of pathological anatomy and teratology. He laid the foundations for national healthcare regulations for the United Provinces.

[Scholarships for a science in crisis: the JAE as sponsor for macroscopic anatomy (1912-1931)]. / Pensionados para una ciencia en crisis: la JAE como mecenas de la anatomía macroscópica (1912-1931).

Beside the creation of national research institutions, the patronage work of the JAE (through scholarships and recognition given to Spanish scientists in the first third of the 20th century) was important in opening the door to the silver age of Spanish science. In the morphologic sciences, macroscopic anatomy was an almost closed science and in crisis with regard to the microscopic sciences and embryology. Despite this setting, the JAE chose to promote this science, importing European anatomical pedagogy and including the technologies and philosophy of the new dynamic anatomy under way on the continent. In this paper, we analyze the grantholders listed in the JAE archives and the studies that they published by them. We conclude that the utilization of these grants played an important role in promoting the international exchange necessary for the reform of a science in crisis, with anatomical pedagogy and technology being the major protagonists of this renewal.

Omnis fibra ex fibra: fibre economies in Bonnet's and Diderot's models of organic order.

In a long-term transformation, that begins in Antiquity but takes a crucial turn in the Renaissance anatomies, the "fibre" becomes from around 1750 the operative building block and at the same time the first unifying principle of function-structure-complexes of organic bodies. It occupies the role that the cell takes up in the cell economies of the second third of the nineteenth century. In this paper, I will first discuss some key notions, technical analogies, and images that are related to "fibre"-concepts from Andreas Vesalius to Albrecht von Haller and then focus on Charles Bonnet's and Denis Diderot's fibre ceconomies. In Bonnet's and Diderot's fibre economies, the self-active, regulating properties of fibre-agents and their material structures, that reach from fibre bundles, tissues and membranes to apparati of organs, are united within the concrete whole of individual organized "systems" or "networks."

[About machines and instruments (I): the body of the automaton in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann]. / Sobre máquinas e instrumentos (I): el cuerpo del autómata en la obra de E.T.A. Hoffmann.

Immediately after becoming interested in animal magnetism, and undoubtedly as a result of this interest, E.T.A. Hoffmann used automata as the central characters in some of his most notable works. This paper aims to show how this interest reveals the author's critical attitude towards a conception of the human being which, developing in parallel to anatomy-based medicine, had led in the eighteenth century to a doctrine whose most complete expression is to be found in "L'homme machine," by J.O. De La Mettrie. Nowadays we can see these tales, like those dedicated to animal magnetism, as a cry of alarm against one of the consequences of such a mechanical conception of a human being: the growth of "biopower," or of "biopolitics," terms coined by Foucault in his last works; but also against the risks entailed by the Promethean drive of modernity.

Contemporary art and the ethics of anatomy.

The ethics of anatomy bears on the ways in which we present and behold human bodies and human remains, as well as on the duties we have with regard to the persons whose bodies or body parts are presented. Anatomy is also a mode of thought and of social organization. Following Merleau-Ponty's assertion that the human body belongs both to the particular and to the metaphysical, I contend that art's ways of rendering of the particular in human anatomy often bring into relief metaphysical and ethical insights relevant to clinical medicine. This paper discusses the art of Gideon Gechtman, Mary Ellen Mark, Shari Zolla, and Christine Borland. It considers the relationship of these artists to earlier artistic traditions and the implications of their work for contemporary medicine and the biopsychosocial paradigm. Andrew Wyeth, the Visible Male Project, the Isenheim Altarpiece by GrA(1/4)newald, and an anonymous Dutch Baroque portrait are also discussed.

[Anatomist, pathologist and philanthropist]. / Anatom, patolog og donator.

Fredrik Georg Gade (1855-1933) was born in Bergen as the eldest son of a merchant and politician. He graduated from the University of Oslo in 1880. After clinical residency and training in anatomy and pathology at the National Hospital in Oslo, he worked in several of the most outstanding medical research institutions in Continental Europe, including the institutes of Robert Koch and Carl Friedländer in Berlin, Carl Weigert in Frankfurt, the pathologists and anatomists Victor Cornil, Louis-Antoine Ranvier and Louis Charles Malassez in Paris. Gade was associate professor (prosector) of anatomy in Oslo from 1897 to 1906 and also the editor of the Norwegian Medical Journal (Norsk Magazin for Laegevidenskaben). He was also one of the pioneers of cancer statistics in Norway. In addition to his scientific publications, he wrote extensively on political and cultural issues. Struck by serious illness he donated most of his family fortune to establish an institute for pathology in his home town Bergen, which opened in 1912 under the name Dr. med. F.G. Gades Pathologiske institutt. It later became one of the pillars of the Medical Faculty when the University of Bergen was established in 1946 (now: The Gade Institute, University of Bergen).

Christopher Addison: a realist in pursuit of dreams.

Addison was the only politician present at the start and end of the legislative process that produced the National Health Service. Having established a national reputation as an anatomist at the age of 41, he abandoned medicine for politics, entering Parliament in 1910 as a Liberal, moving to Labour in 1923, accepting a peerage in 1937, and ending as Leader of the Lords from 1945-1951. His life in politics was as long as the one before it--41 years--with all but 11 as a member of one House or the other. He served in three Cabinets, holding eight offices while in the lower House and four in the upper. Lacking debating skill or a charismatic personality, he owed his advancement to his industrious character and the regard with which he was held by two prime ministers, David Lloyd George and Clement Attlee. Though doubts were raised about his administrative ability, no one ever questioned his courage, diligence, perseverance or ability to adapt to whatever task he undertook. He pursued radical goals throughout his long life but always with regard to the realities of politics. His most important contribution, certainly in the field of public health, lay in the part he played in the creation of the panel system and the Ministry of Health.