Amputation.

摘要

Today, the immediate associations of amputation are surgical, but its derivation from the Latin putare, to prune, is a reminder of its origins in horticulture. Indeed, until the recent past these connections were possibly more likely to have come to mind than its gruesome medical meanings. Amputation was rarely practised by surgeons in antiquity. Before the word entered the English language from the French in the 17th century, an operator would have talked of "dismembering" or some such. From around 1600, both gardeners and surgeons used it equally. John Woodall in his Surgion's Mate (1617) described amputation as "the most lamentable part of Chirurgery".