Mavrogenis Andreas F, Markatos Konstantinos, Nikolaou Vasilios, Gartziou-Tatti Ariadne, Soucacos Panayotis N
First Department of Orthopaedics, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, School of Medicine, Athens, Greece.
Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece.
Int Orthop. 2018 Apr;42(4):957-965. doi: 10.1007/s00264-018-3776-3. Epub 2018 Jan 21.
Congenital anomalies of the limbs have been observed since ancient human civilizations, capturing the imagination of ancient physicians and people. The knowledge of the era could not possibly theorize on the biologic aspects of these anomalies; however, from the very beginning of civilization the spiritual status of people attempted to find a logical explanation for the existence of such cases. The next logical step of the spiritual and religious system of the ancients was to correlate these anomalies with the Gods and to attribute them to a different level of existence in order to rationalize their existence. In these settings, the mythology and religious beliefs of ancient civilizations comprised several creatures that were related to the observed congenital anomalies in humans. The purpose of this historic review is to summarize the depiction of congenital anomalies of the limbs in mythology and antiquity, to present several mythological creatures with resemblance to humans with congenital anomalies of the limbs, to present the atmosphere of the era concerning the congenital anomalies, and to theorize on the anomaly and medical explanation upon which such creatures were depicted. Our aim is to put historic information in one place, creating a comprehensive review that the curious reader would find interesting and enjoyable.
自古代人类文明以来，肢体先天性畸形就已被观察到，引起了古代医生和人们的关注。那个时代的知识不可能对这些畸形的生物学方面进行理论化；然而，从文明伊始，人们的精神状态就试图为这类情况的存在找到合理的解释。古代精神和宗教体系的下一个合乎逻辑的步骤是将这些畸形与神灵联系起来，并将它们归因于不同的存在层面，以便使其存在合理化。在这些背景下，古代文明的神话和宗教信仰包含了几种与人类观察到的先天性畸形有关的生物。这篇历史综述的目的是总结神话和古代对肢体先天性畸形的描述，介绍几种与患有肢体先天性畸形的人类相似的神话生物，呈现那个时代关于先天性畸形的氛围，并对描绘这些生物所依据的畸形和医学解释进行理论化。我们的目标是将历史信息汇集一处，创建一篇全面的综述，让好奇的读者觉得有趣且乐于阅读。
