to never be confused anatomy has a verbal map a directional language of standardized terms to explain where one part of the body is in relation to another we always look at the body like this an anatomical position the body is erect facing forward arms are at the side and the palms are facing forward and the feet are also pointing forward first we have the term superior or inferior superior means towards the head or it could also mean upper or above inferior means towards the feet or used to say lower or below so we'll say the heart is located superior to the stomach or we could say the stomach is located inferior to the heart so that would mean the lungs are blank to the diaphragm or i can say that the diaphragm is blank to the lungs comment below what you think now for the terms anterior and posterior anterior means further to the front or in front of posterior means further to the back or in the back of so we can say that the sternum is anterior to the heart or the heart is posterior to the sternum sometimes you'll see the words ventral and dorsal don't be confused ventral just means anterior and dorsal just means posterior we will also use anterior to say we are looking at the body from the front it's an anterior view and the posterior view meaning we are looking at the body from the back let's try this the pectoralis minor muscle here is blank to the scapula or the scapula is blank to the pec minor muscle comment below what you think next we have the terms medial and lateral to discuss this we draw an imaginary line down the midline of our body this divides the body into the right and left half when we say medial it means towards the midline of the body and so lateral would mean away from the midline and towards the side of the body so we can now say that the heart lies medial to the lungs towards the midline or we could say that the lungs lie lateral to the heart away from the midline the term lateral is also used to describe the view of the body here the side of the body is in its lateral view look at this and answer below in the comments the eyes are blank to the nose and the nose is blank to the eyes comment below what you think next we'll discuss the terms proximal and distal for this just like we saw the midline we are now going to create a mental map of the axial body and the appendicular body just like this axial body is the head neck and trunk and the appendicular body consists of the limbs that are added to our axial body proximal means closer to the axial body towards the trunk of the body the core distal means further from the axial body further from the trunk so for example we can say that the elbow is proximal to the hand or the hand is distal to the elbow because the elbow is closer to the axial body right okay so how about this the pelvic bone is blank to the femur or the femur bone is blank to the pelvic bone comment below what you think lastly we have the term superficial and deep superficial just means closer to the surface the skin of the body and deep means further away from the surface of the body so we can say that the sternum is superficial to the heart or the heart is deep to the sternum we hope this helps do you want more of these videos we can only continue with your support download our kovit 19 ebook the links in the bio and donate to help us write more books