Abstract
Descriptions of the thymus date back to more than 2000 years ago, yet its functions were not known for centuries. The word thymus comes from the Latin derivation of the Greek word thymos, meaning warty excrescence due to its likeness to a bunch of thyme. Because thymos also means “soul” or “spirit,” the thymus was misrepresented as the seat of the soul by the ancient Greeks. Galen of Pergamum (129–200 AD), an ancient Greek physician, who first noted that the thymus was proportionally largest during infancy, referred to the thymus as an “organ of mystery,” a moniker that remained fairly accurate for almost two millennia.
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Cheng, D., Zhang, S. (2021). Thymic Hyperplasia. In: Zhang, S. (eds) Diagnostic Imaging of Mediastinal Diseases. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9930-9_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9930-9_1
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