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Letter: Two views on the naming of female body parts (2)

Published 2 July 2025

From Andrew Evans, Pembroke Dock, UK

Taor contends that male eponyms for female anatomical structures are somehow wrong. Actually, they are part of the rich history of nomenclature in anatomy. Since the 1960s, many have been supplanted by more descriptive terminology, but a lot of the enduring terms do bring to mind the lives of those long-dead anatomists and surgeons whose names they take.

Labels that are historical in context aren’t shameful or offensive, but may certainly be replaced with more nuanced wording, as has happened over the decades since I studied anatomy.

Issue no. 3550 published 5 July 2025

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