Rafael Coello; Pamela Carvallo; Eugenia Carvallo & Mariano del Sol

Summary

All fields in the health sciences use anatomical terminology as a communication tool for the descriptions in print and electronic scientific articles; human anatomical names are the starting point for organizing all scientific medical language respecting their Latin and Greek roots. However, there are terms that originated by symbolism, respecting ideographs, the result of animal dissections. The name plantar muscle (musculus plantaris) will be reviewed as the muscle located in the posterior compartment of the leg as it appears in the Nomina Anatomica or BNA published in Basel in 1895 and Anatomical Terminology text published in 1998, an official document accepted by the FIPAT. Semantic and descriptive characteristics of the term imply the location plantaris muscle in the foot but its morphological identity shows inconsistency by presenting origin and insertion corresponding to the leg. A review of the name is suggested and that the change of plantar muscle to Femorocalcaneo (femorocalcaneous musculus) be considered.

KEY WORDS: Plantar muscle; Terminologia Anatomica (TA); Federative International Programme for Anatomical Terminology a (FIPAT); Femorocalcaneous muscle.

How to cite this article