Collarbone? Clavical?

Well, they didn't have collars on clothing, but they had collars or yokes on animals. And collar-like instruments of torture. Maybe it was still collar bone or yoke bone! Pillory Bone? Noose Bone?

Just a guess here , but the root of the word clavicle could either be a KEY or a CLUB, I dont know which but, If itd be me betting, Id go for the "key bone' idea Of course we are dealing with a time that forbade any dissection under pain of loss of your immortal soul.

Noddy, Latin is the base of most medical/sceintific words. I imagine clavicle has always been used, but as for when collar bone come into common usage - I haven't been able to find that out yet.

I think it's club shaped, though as I haven't seen one, it's difficult to say... and the -cle ending would imply it's a little one

Earliest ref to collar= something worn about the nexk, is 1300. Collar-bone 16th century, first recorded use.

Quote from M-W online:


So maybe it's not the collar itself, but the link between the sternum (breastbone) and scapula (shoulder) that gives it its name... And it's only been the clavicle since 1615... Maybe the OED can go farther back using collarbone, or the French clavicule noted above, but I don't have access...

I imagine that in the middle ages most people that had a broken clavicle had no idea what was causing the pain. I doubt the average Joe understood there was a bone there.

I think in the Middle Ages they were pretty much aware of where the bones were and such -- the average Joe worked with animals, if nothing else, and knew enough about humans to understand that they had similar internal structure. Healers since prehistoric times have set bones.

Now, understanding circulation of the blood, respiration, the function of the liver, etc., were far in the future.

Galen of Perganum (born AD 129, , Pergamum, Mysia, Anatolia [now Bergama, Tur.]
died c. 216 ) was one of the first, who named some parts of the human body - and as a continuation of earlier Hippocratic conceptions, Galenic physiology became a powerful influence in medicine for the next 1,400 years.

Most parts of the human body have been named the same since about that early time. During the Middle Ages Mostly students of medicine just looked for those parts described by Galen (which were mostly those of animals [dogs]), but by the end of the Middle Ages some of his ideas had been corrected.



Many functions - opposite to what Wy says - were known already before the Middle Ages.

History of medecine

Well, not the circulation of blood, unless Wm. Harvey didn't describe it first...

Or is it that a number of things which were known in ancient times were forgotten in the Dark Ages and had to be rediscovered in the Rennaisance/Middle Ages (that sounds more logical).

Thanks, all. I'm delighted if not enlightened.

OED records clavicle's first use as 1615, and its reason - because they look like ancient bolts used to lock doors. In birds, the bones are united into the furculum or merrythought - now there's a thought for a merry morning!

Clary--

"Merrythought" is also a cheerful, positive dialect term for "bastard".

Is that so!!? Sounds too good to be true. Merry lack of thought I would say... Where did that bit of knowledge come from?

Clary--

I probably picked up the "merrythought/bastard" concept from a historical novel. I know it is English and I think perhaps southestern England, but "perhaps" can't be footnoted.

I do know for sure and for certain that in farming communities before modern medicine that bastards were not necessarily regarded purely as a social calamity. All hands were valuable.

Didja know that "Fitz" means the same thing? Jack Jones and Joe FitzJones are half brothers, but Mr. Jones is only married to Jack's mom...

The Irish gays, Patrick Fitzjohn and John Fitzpatrick. It comes from 'fils' of course you all knew.

Wy--

By my research (more historical novels than anywhere else) "Fitz" was more common among the Stuarts and the Hanovers than the lowly Jones family.

"Fitz", as used in England, often indicates illegitimacy.

[In Scotland and Ireland "Mac" or "Mc" means "son of", and families which had settled in Ireland soon after the Norman Conquest have a surname beginning with "Fitz" (from the French "fils", for "son"). ]