Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Amphismela

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to Scalpel. DatGuy^Talk_Contribs 07:50, 20 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Amphismela

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Purely a one-line dicdef for 16 years, with no apparent potential for improvement. BD2412 T 05:12, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: After 16 years, I was only just doing research on this yesterday when I saw it was not WikiProject tagged, so I'm surprised to see it nominated just the day after I was researching it for expansion/GNG!

The term is mentioned on page 78-79 of the currently cited Cyclopædia (depends which version you're looking in, but the text remains the same), and I managed to find another very brief mention at page 54 of [1]^[1]. After realising it was a medical instrument and not a military weapon apparently, I found significant coverage from a secondary source [2] for which I can verify a translation at [3]. This source reveals it as a French term used in the early 1700s for a "dissecting knife" used in cutting ligaments for amputations. Given the source's age it should be in public domain so the image of the knife from that source could be added to the article. This hypothesis is supported by the passing mention in [4]^[2] among other French dictionaries at the time. Likely due to mistranslation, it has also been spelt "amphismila" - it is stylised in french as amphismèle.[5]^[3]

According to [6]^[4], it was used for the "diffection of bones" (I believe it is referring to dissection or amputation) [7]^[5] instead says it was for the "diffection of bodies" - I speculate the term ended up there through word of mouth in French translation. There are a handful of other dictionaries to mimic this definition around the same timeframe such as [8].

[9] mentions in passing and apparently also does not know the origin of the term.

Will also note the stub got mirrored a lot: [10][11][12][13][14][15]. There are also apparently over a dozen mirrors mentioning the term from mirrors to List of medical roots, suffixes and prefixes (this doesn't help its case for notability but I think it is worth pointing out since these mirrors make it harder to find non-circular sources).

So, as far as notability, the sources are there I would image the article hasn't been expanded because it's extremely hard to find any detailed description of the object as it was in the 1700s. I think there is good reason to believe that somewhere there is a french 1700s medical book (almost certainly among the non-English non-dictionaries that show up as a search result at internet archive) that provides significant coverage to meet the two reliable sources required for GNG, hence my suggestion to keep. If the article survives AfD I am willing to expand the article with the information I found.

References

^ Dunglison, Robley (1848). Medical lexicon : a dictionary of medical science : containing a concise account of the various subjects and terms with the French and other synonymes, notices of climate, and of celebrated mineral waters, formulæ for various officinal and empirical preparations, etc. Lea and Blanchard. OCLC 8486401.
^ Dunglison, Robley (1848). "Art. XXVI.—Medical Lexicon. A Dictionary of Medical Science, containing a concise explanation of the various subjects and terms, with the French and other Synonymes, notices of Climate and of celebrated Mineral Waters. Formaiœ for various officinal and empirical Preparations, etc". The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 16 (32): 428–429. doi:10.1097/00000441-184816320-00026. ISSN 0002-9629.
^ Fleming, Charles; Tibbins, J.; Dobson, J.; Picot, C. (1845). A new and complete French and English, and English and French Dictionary; on the basis of the Royal Dictionary. With complete tables of the Verbs, by C. Picot. The whole prepared with the addition of a number of terms in the Sciences; by J. Dobson. 2nd Edition. OCLC 561003324.
^ Blount, Thomas (1707). Glossographia anglicana nova or, A Dictionary, interpreting such hard words of whatever language, as are at present used in the English tongue, with their etymologies, definition, &c. Also the terms of divinity, law, physick, mathematicks, history, agriculture, logick, metaphysicks, grammar, poetry, musick, heraldry, architecture, painting, war, and all other arts and sciences are herein explain'd ... Printed for D. Brown. OCLC 561317338.
^ Bailey, N. (1735). An universal etymological English dictionary : ... The seventh edition, with considerable improvements. By N. Bailey ... Printed for J.J. and P. Knapton, D. Midwinter, A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, J. Pemberton, R. Ware [and 6 others in London]. OCLC 520742114.

Darcyisverycute (talk) 15:56, 5 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to knife (and don't unredirect without a change in focus). Above sources are all fine but don't seem to contradict the idea that this is merely an obscure synonym / alternate Greek term. Article should only be restored if there's evidence of this being a "separate topic," i.e. a specific kind of knife, rather than simply the term used for a knife by some 1700s French surgeons. (Also, note that "number of mirrors" is a weak argument, all of Wikipedia gets mirrored everywhere, including the non-notable parts.) SnowFire (talk) 07:29, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:22, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Greece-related deletion discussions. ––FormalDude talk 09:56, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect, to scalpel, as an obsolete name for a double edged scalpel or lancet. SailingInABathTub ~~🛁~~ 11:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Darcyisverycute, who said everything I was going to say and a whole lot more. Central and Adams (talk) 21:34, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify. Current article is in a bad shape, sources hard to find but possibly existing, and an editor is willing to do the hard work needed to get this actually ready for mainspace? I'd say this is the perfect candidate for a Draft. If it then turns out the sources were just hard to find, and a separate article is warranted – great, good job Darcyisverycute! And if it turns out sources were not sufficient after all – well, then this won't make it back to article space. --LordPeterII (talk) 22:26, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
redirect to scalpel, and merge the info to Scalpel#Ancient_scalpels. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:49, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

However, if user:Darcyisverycute would like a small amount of time to merge their text above into the article, perhaps this and the small listing of other ancient scalpels could become a whole article on the variety of ancient scalpels. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:52, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In current state, suggest redirect as above. No barriers to further expansion, but this stublet does no one any good, whereas landing at Scalpel#Ancient_scalpels is actually useful for the reader. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 10:54, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Merge with Scalpel#Ancient scalpels: This seems like an appropriate action given the sources found by Darcyisverycute. ––FormalDude talk 17:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Merge as per User:FormalDude. Maybe an entry on wikitionary, but not an article on Wikipedia. KSAWikipedian (talk) 22:43, 19 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

[1] Dunglison, Robley (1848). Medical lexicon : a dictionary of medical science : containing a concise account of the various subjects and terms with the French and other synonymes, notices of climate, and of celebrated mineral waters, formulæ for various officinal and empirical preparations, etc. Lea and Blanchard. OCLC 8486401.

[2] Dunglison, Robley (1848). "Art. XXVI.—Medical Lexicon. A Dictionary of Medical Science, containing a concise explanation of the various subjects and terms, with the French and other Synonymes, notices of Climate and of celebrated Mineral Waters. Formaiœ for various officinal and empirical Preparations, etc". The American Journal of the Medical Sciences. 16 (32): 428–429. doi:10.1097/00000441-184816320-00026. ISSN 0002-9629.

[3] Fleming, Charles; Tibbins, J.; Dobson, J.; Picot, C. (1845). A new and complete French and English, and English and French Dictionary; on the basis of the Royal Dictionary. With complete tables of the Verbs, by C. Picot. The whole prepared with the addition of a number of terms in the Sciences; by J. Dobson. 2nd Edition. OCLC 561003324.

[4] Blount, Thomas (1707). Glossographia anglicana nova or, A Dictionary, interpreting such hard words of whatever language, as are at present used in the English tongue, with their etymologies, definition, &c. Also the terms of divinity, law, physick, mathematicks, history, agriculture, logick, metaphysicks, grammar, poetry, musick, heraldry, architecture, painting, war, and all other arts and sciences are herein explain'd ... Printed for D. Brown. OCLC 561317338.

[5] Bailey, N. (1735). An universal etymological English dictionary : ... The seventh edition, with considerable improvements. By N. Bailey ... Printed for J.J. and P. Knapton, D. Midwinter, A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, J. Pemberton, R. Ware [and 6 others in London]. OCLC 520742114.

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