Studies in the Medicine of Ancient India, Part I: Osteology, or the Bones of the Human Body c7.s3.t2.21

c7.s3.t2.21

10. To sum up: from the foregoing discussion the conclusion suggests itself that the original meaning of the word jatru may have been ‘immature bone’ or cartilage. Originally the word was used to denote the cartilaginous portions of the neck and breast, that is, the windpipe and the costal cartilages. In the Vedas it still has this undefined meaning. In the medical textbooks its use is limited to the cartilaginous portion of the neck, i.e. the windpipe (Charaka), and hence, either to the neck generally, or to the sterno-clavicular articulation at the base of the neck (Suśruta). At a comparatively late date (sixth or seventh century A.D.), and in general literature, owing to a misinterpretation of the anatomical terms sandhi and amsa, it was made to mean clavicle.