Source: The Conversation – UK – By Lucy E. Hyde, Lecturer, Anatomy, University of Bristol
Buried in your body is a tribute to a long-dead Italian anatomist, and he is not the only one. You are walking around with the names of strangers stitched into your bones, brains, and organs. We all are.
Some of these names sound mythical. The Achilles tendon, the band at the back of your ankle, pays homage to a Greek hero felled by an arrow in his weak spot. The Adam’s apple nods to a certain biblical bite of fruit. But most of these names are not myths. They belong to real people, mostly European anatomists from centuries ago, whose legacies live on every time someone opens a medical textbook.
They are called eponyms: anatomical structures named after people rather than described for what they actually are.
Take the fallopian tubes. These small passageways between the ovaries and the uterus were described in 1561 by Gabriele Falloppio, an Italian anatomist with a fascination for tubes who also gave his name to the Fallopian canal in the ear.
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Or “Broca’s area”, named for Paul Broca, the 19th-century French physician who linked a region of the left frontal lobe to speech production. If you have ever studied psychology or known someone who has had a stroke, you have probably heard his name.
Then there is the eustachian tube, that small airway you pop open when you yawn on a plane. It is named after Bartolomeo Eustachi, a 16th-century physician to the Pope. These men have all left fingerprints on our anatomy, not in the flesh, but in the language.
Why have we stuck with these names for centuries? Because eponyms are more than medical trivia. They are woven into the culture of anatomy. Generations of students have chanted them in lecture halls and scribbled them into notes. Surgeons drop them mid-operation as if chatting about old friends.
They are short, snappy and familiar. “Broca’s area” takes two seconds to say. Its descriptive alternative, “posterior inferior frontal gyrus,” feels like reciting an incantation. In busy clinical settings, brevity often wins.
Eponyms also come with stories, which make them memorable. Students remember Falloppio because he sounds like a Renaissance lute player. They remember Achilles because they know where to aim the arrow. In a field that can feel like a wall of Latin, a human story becomes a useful hook.
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And, of course, there is tradition. Medical language is built on centuries of scholarship. For many, erasing eponyms would feel like tearing down history itself.
But there is a darker side to this linguistic love affair. For all their charm, eponyms often fail at their main purpose. They rarely tell you what a structure is or what it does. “Fallopian tube” gives no clue about its role or location. “Uterine tube” does.
Eponyms also reflect a narrow version of history. Most originated during the European Renaissance, a time when anatomical “discovery” often meant claiming knowledge that already existed elsewhere. The people being celebrated are overwhelmingly white European men. The contributions of women, non-European scholars and Indigenous knowledge systems are almost invisible in this language.
Then there is the truly uncomfortable truth: some eponyms honour people with horrific pasts. “Reiter’s syndrome,” for example, was named after Hans Reiter, a Nazi physician who conducted brutal experiments on prisoners at Buchenwald. Today, the medical community uses the neutral term “reactive arthritis,” a small but meaningful refusal to celebrate someone who caused harm.
Every eponym is a small monument. Some are quaint and historical. Others are monuments we would rather not keep polishing.
Descriptive names, by contrast, simply make sense. They are clear, universal and useful. You do not need to memorise who discovered something, only where it is and what it does.
If you hear “nasal mucosa,” you immediately know it is inside the nose. Ask someone to locate the “Schneiderian membrane,” and you will probably get a blank stare.
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Descriptive terms are easier to translate, standardise and search. They make anatomy more accessible for learners, clinicians and the public. Most importantly, they do not glorify anyone.
So what should we do with all these old names?
There is a growing movement to phase out eponyms, or at least to use them alongside descriptive ones. The International Federation of Associations of Anatomists (IFAA) encourages descriptive terms in teaching and writing, with eponyms in parentheses.
That does not mean we should burn the history books. It means adding context. We can teach the story of Paul Broca while acknowledging the bias built into naming traditions. We can remember Hans Reiter not by attaching his name to a disease, but as a cautionary tale.
This dual approach allows us to preserve the history without letting it dictate the future. It makes anatomy clearer, fairer, and more honest.
The language of anatomy is not just academic jargon. It is a map of power, memory, and legacy written into our flesh. Every time a doctor says “Eustachian tube,” they echo the 16th century. Every time a student learns “uterine tube,” they reach for clarity and inclusion.
Perhaps the future of anatomy is not about erasing old names. It is about understanding the stories they carry and deciding which ones are worth keeping.
Lucy E. Hyde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
– ref. How anatomical names can carry hidden histories of power and exclusion – https://theconversation.com/how-anatomical-names-can-carry-hidden-histories-of-power-and-exclusion-267880
