After 10 years of a normal medical practice (for the times) Mesmer grew ever so impatient with the “classic” potions, salves, and bloodletting. He treated a woman of what today would be called “hysteria” or “somatization disorder” with every known medical treatment unsuccessfully; she improved after a treatment with magnets! leading Mesmer to believe that “animal magnetism” was the way to continue his career.

Mesmer developed a pseudotechnique to “magnetize” almost every element except steel, and his patient base grew. These patients all had some type of mental disorder that was susceptible to treatment by suggestion. Mesmer had discovered what today we know as the “placebo effect” and the basics of therapeutic hypnosis. Mesmer had so many patients that he had to treat them in “batches”, several at a time. Patients who were treated by Mesmer were said to have been “Mesmerized”.

Sources:

1. "Franz Anton Mesmer and the Rise and Fallof Animal Magnetism: Dramatic Cures,Controversy, and Ultimately a Triumph for the Scientific Method"Lanska DJ, Lanska JT Brain, Mind and Medicine: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Neuroscience, 2007
2. "Early American mesmeric societies: a historical study" Gravitz, MA Am J Clin Hypn (1994) 37, 41–48
3. "Franz Anton Mesmer: The first psychotherapist of the modern age?" Traetta, L (2008) Int J Psychol 43 (3-4) 121

The root term [-styl-] is Greek and means "a pillar". The Latin term [stilos] means "a pointy structure". The suffix [oid] means "similar to". The word then means "similar to a pillar".

In anatomy, the styloid process is a pointy, slender pillar of bone that is found in the inferior aspect of the temporal bone. See accompanying image. Vesalius thought that a slender bony process of the ulna looked similar, so he called it also the "styloid process"

The root term [-styl-] can be found in muscles that are related to the styloid process of the temporal bone, such as: styloglossus, stylohyoid, and stylopharyngeus.

The word [necrosis] arises from the Greek [nekros] meaning "a dead body" or "death". The suffix [-osis] means "condition", but with the connotation of "many". Literally, the term necrosis means "many deaths", but it used to refer to "cell death".

When necrosis is due to an arterial obstruction, the term becomes synonymous with "infarction".

The trapezium bone is one of the four bones that comprise the distal row of the carpus or carpal bones that form the wrist. It is distinguished by a large groove on its anterior (volar) surface. It is found on the lateral (radial) aspect of the wrist between the scaphoid bone proximally and the first metacarpal distally (see image). It is also known as the "multangular bone" or the "os multangulum majus"

The trapezium bone articulates with four bones, including the scaphoid, trapezoid, and the first and second metacarpals.

The accompanying image shows the anterior (volar) surface of the wrist. Click on the image for a larger picture.

The medical term [morphology] arises from the Greek root term [morphos] meaning "shape" or "form". The suffix [-ology] means "study of". In biological sciences [morphology] is the study of form.

Skinner¹ defines morphology as the study of "the external configuration and structure of any part and the factors that influence its development and final form".

The term was first used in 1817

1. "The origin of Medical Terms" Skinner, AH, 1970

William Cowper  (1666 – 1710). English barber-surgeon and anatomist, William Cowper (sometimes known as William Cooper) was born in Petersfield, Hampshire. After apprenticeship with famous barber-surgeons, Cowmper was admitted as a Freeman to the Company of Barber Surgeons in 1691 after which he had a successful career as a surgeon and an anatomist in London.

Cowper opened the first private school of anatomy in London. In 1694, Cowper published “Myotomia Reformata “, a great textbook with a description of all the muscles. A controversy arose because Cowper used the illustrations from another book by Govert Bidloo (1649 – 1713). The controversy became a problem for Cowper who had to answer questions on the subject to the Royal academy, where Cowper became a member in 1699. Cowper alleged that Bidloo’s plates, although greatly illustrated had a poor description which he improved.

In 1699 Cowper published the “Philosophical Transactions” where he describes the bulbourethral glands which are today eponymically tied to his name. An infection of these glands is called a “Cowperitis”. 

Sources:
1. “Two eponymous surgeons:William Cowper and Fran?ois Poupart” Ellis, H. Brit J Hosp Med (2009) 70:4, 225
2. "Cowper, William (1666–1710)" Kornell, M, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004
3. "Medical Discoveries, who and when" Schmidt, JE: C Thomas Pub. 1959
Original imagecourtesy of "Images from the History of Medicine" at www.nih.gov