Patella shallow dish. Patella The patella, also known as the kneecap, is a thick, circular-triangular bone which articulates with the femur (thigh bone) and covers and protects the anterior articular surface of the knee joint. The patella is found in many tetrapods, such as mice, cats and birds, but not in whales, or most reptiles. In humans, the patella is the largest sesamoid bone in the body. Babies are born with a patella of soft cartilage which begins to ossify into bone at about three years of age. The patella is a sesamoid bone roughly triangular in shape, with the apex
Traditional Chinese medicines derived from the human body "Three Corpses; demonic spirits believed to live in the human body and hasten death" and "gǔdú" 蠱毒 "gu poisoning"; a poison produced by venomous insects; cast a black magic spirit possession over someone". The first "Bencao gangmu" prescription for human nails is not from Chinese medical texts but from Daoist rituals for expelling what (Cooper & Sivin (1973: 220) describe as the "Three Corpse-Worms 三尸, the chief of the "inner gods" who are to the individual microcosm what the celestial bureaucracy is to the cosmos." Prescription 52.6.1, the 斬三尸法 "Method of Beheading the Three Corpses", involves supernaturally cutting the nails