The Fate of Popular Terms for Female Anatomy in the Age of Print

Empirical verification based on dissection of human cadavers created a revolution in anatomy and launched the movement that brought about a semantic remapping of the human body.' The pioneers of modern anatomy -Andreas Vesalius (1514-64), Bartolommeo Eustachio (1520-74), Gabriello Fallopio (1523-62), and many others-struggled with the issue of nomenclature.2 Some anatomists invented their own terms for what they discovered at the dissecting table, while others, influenced by humanism's call for purification, substituted Greek and Latin terms for Arabic.3 The latter were seen as corruptions which had seeped into the Western heritage. Purification of old anatomical vocabulary was facilitated by the 1502 publication of the Onomasticon byJulius Pollux (A.D. 134-92). Physicians drew from its section on anatomical terms, which have become the basis of modern terminology.4