The body has some wonderfully-named nooks and crannies, including, but not limited to, the pancreas’ islets of Langerhans, the part of the pancreas that contains endocrine cells. Lately we’ve been entranced by the sphincter of Oddi, a region of the duodenum in the lower stomach where digestive juices –mainly bile from the gallbladder and pancreatic juices — like to collect, socialize and digest. Even odder? The juices flow through something called the ampulla of Vater. We imagine most of the body’s naming rights were claimed long ago by the likes of Paul Langerhans, Ruggero Oddi and Abraham Vater, but I wouldn’t be suprised if pharmaceutical companies starting branding yet-unclaimed body parts. Pfizer Phagocytes or GlaxoSmithKline Glia anyone?
