Tag: clairefraser

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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: adductor

picture of jamie fraser on battle field from outlander

Starz Outlander episode 301, The Battle Joined

Anatomy def: Brought in? Adductor means brought in? How do such words apply to anatomy?

Easy peasy: adductors are muscles whose contraction draws a body part toward the midline or toward another body part. Six adductor muscles draw the thigh toward the midline: gracilis, adductor brevis, adductor longus and adductor magnus, aided by pectineus and obturator externus.

Outlander def: Jamie’s thigh-high kilt <G> reveals powerful left thigh adductors forming a well-defined mass of the inner thigh (red arrow). A grinning Murtagh dispatches a red coat and helps Jamie rise from a seated position: “ye are welcome!” Adductors contract to lend balance and assist Murty’s lift: git up, man, there’s a battle raging!!! 

Learn about the thigh and its powerful muscles in Anatomy Lesson #7, Jamie’s Thighs or Ode to Joy. 

Read about thighs in all Diana’s works as Herself often writes about them – not specifically about adductor muscles, but about various thigh muscles, sinews, bones, skin and scars! Consider this wonderful bit from Voyager book; takes you right back to that intimate C + J reunion after 20 agonizing years apart:

I reached out and stroked his thigh, touching the long scar that ran down it. “I wish I could have been there to take care of you,” I said softly. “It was the most horrible thing I ever did—leaving you, knowing … that you meant to be killed.” I could hardly bear to speak the word. 

“Well, I tried hard enough,” he said, with a wry grimace that made me laugh, in spite of my emotion. “It wasna my fault I didna succeed.” He glanced dispassionately at the long, thick scar that ran down his thigh. “Not the fault of the Sassenach wi’ the bayonet, either.” 

See Jamie’s adductor muscles in Starz Outlander episode 301, The Battle Joined. They are admirably awesome (red arrow)!

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