This little piggy

When I first joined the department, it had its own library, located just across the hall from my office. The current issues of about 20 biomedical journals were displayed on racks against one wall. Only a few journals published their table of contents on the cover, and the New England Journal of Medicine was one. Occasionally, a title would catch my eye. This was one. The title is "Higgledy, Piggledy." Here's the entire text:

"When referring to the hand, the names digitus pollicis, indicis, medius, annularis, and minimus specify the five fingers. In situations of clinical relevance the use of such names can preclude anatomical ambiguity. These time-tested terms have honored the fingers, but the toes have been labeled only by number, except of course the great toe, or hallux. Is it not time for the medical community to have the toes no longer stand up and merely be counted? I submit for consideration the following nomenclature to refer to the pedal digits: for the hallux, porcellus fori; for the second toe, p. domi; for the third toe, p. carnivorus; for the fourth toe, p. non voratus; and for the fifth toe, p. plorans domum.

"Using porcellus as the diminutive form of porcus, or pig, one can translate the suggested terminology as follows: piglet at market, piglet at home, meat-eating piglet, piglet having not eaten, and piglet crying homeward, respectively."

N Engl J Med 1991; 324:497