Historical anatomical terminology and its conceptual relevance to modern anatomy: A comparative analysis of a fourteenth-century Persian anatomical text

Historical anatomical manuscripts offer important insight into the ways anatomical knowledge was conceptualized and communicated through language. Kitab-ı Teşrihü’l-Ebdan Min e’t-Tıb , a fourteenth-century Persian illustrated anatomical text, represents a major yet insufficiently studied source for understanding pre-modern anatomical terminology. The present study therefore aims to systematically analyze the anatomical terminology used in this work and to compare it with modern anatomical nomenclature. All anatomical terms occurring throughout the manuscript were systematically identified and examined according to their original linguistic form and literal meaning. The extracted terms were then compared conceptually with modern anatomical nomenclature and classified based on their primary terminological strategy and anatomical region. In total, 146 distinct anatomical terms were identified. Descriptive terminology constituted the most frequent naming strategy (31.5%), followed by regional and analogical strategies (each 21.2%), functional terminology (18.5%), and direct nominative correspondence (7.5%). Further region-based analysis revealed systematic variation in terminological strategies, with descriptive and regional terminology predominating in osteology, functional terminology emphasized in visceral anatomy, and analogical naming particularly frequent in sense organs and articular structures. Taken together, these findings indicate that the anatomical terminology of Kitab-ı Teşrihü’l-Ebdan Min e’t-Tıb reflects a coherent, systematic, and observation-based understanding of human anatomy. Differences from modern anatomical terminology appear to arise primarily from divergent conceptual frameworks rather than from deficiencies in anatomical knowledge. • 146 anatomical terms were identified in a 14th-century Persian text • Descriptive terminology constituted 31.5% of all extracted terms • Regional and analogical strategies each accounted for 21.2% • Functional naming predominated in visceral anatomical structures • Comparison with TA showed limited direct correspondence