Tag: funfact

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Fun Fact: os nasale

Starz episode 306, A. Malcolm

Anatomy def: The ossa nasale are small paired bones forming the bridge of nose. These support the softer cartilage sides and tip of nose.

Outlander def: Delicate nose bones in peril as arduous sweethearts bump-thump: Jamie’s hard head meets Claire’s delicate bridge of nose. Och! What a memorable moment for the two lovers, underscoring 20 years of absence!!! 

Learn about ossa nasale in Anatomy Lesson #28, Claire’s Nose – The Savvy Sniffer!

Diana’s books are replete with examples of Claire sniffing out all manner of splendors, offenders and defenders! Intact ossa nasale provide the very best nasal architecture for her (and us) to sample odors, smells, scents, aromas, fragrances, reeks, stinks, miasmas, whiffs, flavors, fetors, airs, aurae, stenches and funks. Claire’s savvy sniffer does ‘em all!

Read about Claire’s ossa nasale in Voyager book. The two-decades, long-awaited moment is interrupted with a head-to-nose kebby-lebby!

My nose hit his forehead with a sickening crunch. My eyes watered profusely as I rolled away from him, clutching my face. “Ow!”

“Christ, have I hurt ye, Claire?” Blinking away the tears, I could see his face, hovering anxiously over me. “No,” I said stupidly. “My nose is broken, though, I think.” “No, it isn’t,” he said, gently feeling the bridge of my nose. “When ye break your nose, it makes a nasty crunching sound, and ye bleed like a pig. It’s all right.” 

I felt gingerly beneath my nostrils, but he was right; I wasn’t bleeding. The pain had receded quickly, too. As I realized that, I also realized that he……

Psst….for the rest of this passage,….. read the book! <G>

See Och! See Jamie’s head smack the bridge of Claire’s nose and Claire grip her ossa nasale in Outlander, episode 306, A. Malcolm! Laddie, yer heid is as hard as an iron pot, or so says your sister, Jenny! ?

The deeply grateful,

Outlander Anatomist

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Photo Credit: Sony/Starz

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Fun Fact: axis

example of axis in human anatomy

Starz episode 313 Eye of the Storm

Anatomy def: The axis is the second cervical (C2) vertebra, situated near the top of spine but below the atlas (C1 vertebra). As the head rotates from side-to-side, skull and C1 pivot as a single unit around the axis.

Outlander def: Mistress Abernathy didna see Claire grab that machete! Else, her head would have twisted wildly from side-to-side, as in NO-NO (she is a twisted sista <G>)!  Claire, the surgeon, kens proper use of a blade. Here, “off with her head” takes on a whole new meaning!

Learn about the axis vertebra in Anatomy Lesson #53, Dr. Abernathy Meets Pretty Lady and also in Anatomy Lesson #12, Claire’s Neck or The Ivory Tower.

Read about the axis vertebra in Voyager book. Yes, Herself explains that a dull blade was used to hack through segments of the axis, removing pretty lady’s head! Here in Dr. Abernathy ’s office:

The wide body of the axis had a deep gouge; the posterior zygapophysis had broken clean off, and the fracture plane went completely through the centrum of the bone.

Joe’s finger moved over the line of the fracture plane. “See here? The bone’s not just cracked, it’s gone right there. Somebody tried to cut this lady’s head clean off. With a dull blade,” he concluded with relish. 

See Claire cleave off the witch’s head at the axis in Starz episode 313, Eye of the Storm. Two hundred years in the future, Claire and Geillis will meet again – when Mistress Abernathy is nothing more than “dem bones!”

A deeply grateful,

Outlander Anatomist

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Fun Fact: lacerate

image of a laceration being stituced up

Starz episode 311, Uncharted

Anatomy def: Lacerate means to gash, slash, tear, rip, rend, shred, scratch or score the skin (or other organs) – owie!

Outlander def: Claire’s mad dash-gash!  Rushing through the tropical forest to find Jamie, she snags her arm on a very large plant spike and, gah!  

Mr. Willoughby to the rescue wielding needle and thread, presumably designed to mend sails. That is one mighty big needle, Yi Tien Cho!  ? Never-the-less, he carefully and tidily closes Claire’s laceration (n), stemming further blood loss. Nice work, Mr. W! Excellent special effects, too!

Learn about lacerations in Anatomy Lesson #35, Outlander Owies! – Part One. Used precisely, lacerate means to tear – the leaving somewhat ragged wound margins. Incision means to slice with a sharp edge (e.g. blade), which leave sharp edges to the wound. Closing an incision usually leaves a thinner scar.

Read about Claire’s dramatic arm gash in Voyager book! Understand, there is much more to Claire’s wound story than TV time allows. What caused Claire’s laceration? I urge you to read the book for all the nitty-gritty! Here, Herself grips our imaginations, yet again:

“Jamie!” I clutched at his shoulder, my vision going white at the edges. “You aren’t all right—look, you’re bleeding!” … “My God!” said his frightened voice, out of the whirling blackness. “It’s no my blood, Sassenach, it’s yours!”

… “What happened?” I asked.

“Ye’ve a bone-deep slash down your arm from oxter to elbow, and had I not got a cloth round it in time, ye’d be feeding the sharks this minute!”

It was a long, clean-edged slash, running at a slight angle across the front of my biceps, from the shoulder to an inch or so above the elbow joint. And while I couldn’t actually see the bone of my humerus, it was without doubt a very deep wound, gaping widely at the edges.

Jamie was holding one of my curved suture needles and a length of sterilized cat-gut, … It was Mr. Willoughby who intervened, quietly taking the needle from Jamie’s hands. “I can do this,” he said, in tones of authority.

A wee bit later after some yummy turtle soup laced with sherry <G>, TV Claire tells Jamie that the penicillin she later injects into her thigh would not have been useful on the Porpoise because, too many men and “that antibiotic wouldn’t work against typhoid.”

 Just so you ken, years ago, penicillin was used to successfully treat typhoid, although today, it is no longer used for this purpose, having been replaced with other antibiotics. Herself got it right in Voyager book! Yup, yet again!

I thought I had resigned myself to the realities of this time, but knowing—even as I held the twitching body of an eighteen-year-old seaman as his bowels dissolved in blood and water—that penicillin would have saved most of them, and I had none, was galling as an ulcer, eating at my soul.

The box of syringes and ampules had been left behind on the Artemis, in the pocket of my spare skirt. If I had had it, I could not have used it. If I had used it, I could have saved no more than one or two. But even knowing that, I raged at the futility of it all, clenching my teeth until my jaw ached as I went from man to man, armed with nothing but boiled milk and biscuit, and my two empty hands.

See the Chinese poet deftly close Clair’s gaping wound in Starz episode 311, Uncharted. A civilized and truly gifted man!

A deeply grateful,

Outlandish Anatomist