Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s1.t7.1

c7.s1.t7.1

1. Kapālikā or kūrpara, elbow-pan, and jānu or jānuka, knee-cap. There can be no doubt regarding the bones to which these terms refer. They are the olecranon process of the elbow, and the patella of the knee. The former, which ‘in its function and structure resembles the patella’,¹ is not a separate bone, but a process of the ulna (Fig. 8). But by the ancient Indian anatomists, according to their usual practice (§ 44), it is counted as a separate bone. They follow herein our own popular usage which speaks of it as the ‘funny bone’ or ‘crazy bone’.