Anatomy def: Extensor digitorum (ED) is a muscle of the back of forearm that straightens four fingers (index, middle, ring, little), wrist, and elbow. It also slightly separates the fingers as it extends them.

Outlander def: The insult to injury muscle! Jamie’s puir fingers, smashed by Malicious-Mallet, are then slashed by Dougal-Dirk! A hair deeper and the blade would have severed his ED tendons! No repair possible in 18th century – Jamie would have permanently lost his grip. His days of Warrior-Work would have ended!

Learn about ED muscle in Anatomy Lesson #22, Jamie’s Hand – Symbol of Sacrifice. Extensor digitorum is more precisely known as extensor digitorum communis (EDC) to underscore the sharing of four tendons by a single muscle.

Read about Jamie’s battered digits and Claire’s fastidious repairs in Diana’s first big book, Outlander:

What has he done to you?” I asked ……Moving with exquisite care, he used his left hand to lift the object he had been cradling… It was his right hand, almost unrecognizable as a human appendage.

…A single broken finger is enough to sink a strong man to his knees with nauseated pain…
It was a long, horrible, nerve-wracking job….. some parts, such as the splinting of the two fingers with simple fractures, went quite easily. Others did not….

All five fingers eventually lay straight as new pins, stiff as sticks in their bandaged splints…

See Dougal slice Jamie’s digits in Starz episode 213, Dragonfly in Amber.

A deeply grateful,

Outlander Anatomist