Should the annular tendon of the eye be named 'annulus of Zinn' or 'of Valsalva'?
The annular tendon is commonly named 'annulus of Zinn', from the German anatomist and botanist Johann Gottfried Zinn (1727-1759) who described this structure in his Descriptio anatomica oculi humani (Anatomical Description of the Human Eye, 1755). This structure, however, had been previously discovered not by Zinn, but by Antonio Maria Valsalva (1666-1723) some decades before the publication of Zinn, in his Dissertatio anatomica prima and Dissertatio anatomica altera (First and Second Anatomical Dissertations), inside Valsalva's Opera omnia published in 1740. We advance that this structure could be re-named such as 'annulus of Valsalva-Zinn' because Valsalva, even making a mistake in its functional interpretation, first described this anatomical structure. Likewise, Valsalva, with his discovery, advanced a revolutionary idea for that time on the usefulness of anatomy for clinic and pathology.
Department of Cardiac, Thoracic and Vascular Sciences, Section of Medical Humanities, Padua University Medical School, Padua, Italy.
Fabio
F
Zampieri
Daniela
D
Marrone
Alberto
A
Zanatta
D000715:Anatomy / Q000266:history*; D005858:Germany; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D009801:Oculomotor Muscles / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D009885:Ophthalmology / Q000266:history*; D013710:Tendons / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D009626:Terminology as Topic
Antonio Valsalva; anatomical nomenclature; annular tendon; annulus of Zinn; eye anatomy