Patella of age. Due to the great stress on the patellofemoral joint during resisted knee flexion, the articular cartilage of the patella is among the thickest in the human body. The lower part of the posterior surface has vascular canaliculi filled and is filled by fatty tissue, the infrapatellar fat pad. Emarginations (i.e. "patella emarginata", a "missing piece") are common laterally on the proximal edge. Bipartite patellas are the result of an ossification of a second cartilaginous layer at the location of an emargination. Previously, bipartite patellas were explained as the failure of several ossification centres to fuse, but this idea
History of beliefs about the human body much on discourse about bodies, rather than on material bodies themselves. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's 1965 "Rabelais and His World", they promoted a more materially orientated direction in the history of the body. The Ebers Papyrus is an Egyptian medical text and is the oldest known record of the human body, dating back to 3000 BC. The Ebers Papyrus describes the body by physical examination and what can be felt. Clinical investigations such as the Pulse, percussion of the body, the recognition of diseased or disordered states. “If thou examinst a swelling of the covering of his belly’s horns above