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neku wrote (edited )

theres a lot of names in anatomy that are like, some guy looked at this and compared it to x so now it's named after x. the atria of the heart have little appendages that are called auricles (which literally means ear) because the first guy who decided to crack a guy open and look at his heart thought that they looked like dog's ears from the ventral view

something else that is funny is the concept of the motor/somatosensory homunculi. the motor/somatosensory cortices of the brain are disproportionately dedicated to different regions of the body so physiologists decided that the best way to describe that was to make monstrosities where body parts were proportional to their representation in the motor/somatosensory cortices eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sensory_and_motor_homunculi.jpg

https://i.natgeofe.com/n/080c5361-c999-4cf9-8fd5-ed59c4c59ae5/homunculus-600_3x2.png

https://64.media.tumblr.com/96eb52f722f9e1f869513392d94928bf/tumblr_ooaw6lNJj41skn1oxo1_500.png